VERONA ISLAND – The $160 million state bridge initiative the governor unveiled this week would include money for the removal of the defunct Waldo-Hancock Bridge.

Gov. John Baldacci’s proposal, if approved, would authorize revenue bonds of $40 million per year for four years to raise a total of $160 million.

Those funds would be added to anticipated bridge funding of approximately $280 million ($70 million per year) to create a $440 million four-year bridge investment plan to repair and replace bridges throughout the state.

Included in those funds was $6 million to remove the Waldo-Hancock Bridge, the 77-year-old structure that spans the Penobscot River between Verona Island and Prospect. It is one of six bridges statewide slated for removal under the initiative.

The $6 million estimate is much lower than state transportation officials had expected. Earlier estimates had been double that amount, well into the $12 million range. Though the estimate is preliminary and the project has not been put out to bid, it appears it will be less difficult to remove the bridge than had been anticipated, according to Kenneth Sweeney, director of the state Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Project Development and its deputy chief engineer.

“We hired an engineering firm to look at how we would take it down,” Sweeney said Thursday. “It came back a lot less complicated than we thought initially.”

One factor in the lower estimate is that the department will not have to remove the large concrete piers set in the river that support the two towers on the bridge. The piers go down about 60 feet to the bottom of the river and would be difficult, time-consuming and expensive to remove. But, according to Sweeney, the U.S. Coast Guard has agreed to allow the piers to remain in the river.

“The Coast Guard is amenable to keeping them in place,” he said. “We have to put navigation lights on them, but otherwise, they don’t pose a hazard to navigation.”

Sweeney projected that removal of the bridge could begin within the four-year window of the governor’s initiative, but said it was unlikely the project would be a top priority.

“We’ve removed the traffic from that bridge, so we’re not going to do anything there right out of the box,” he said. “We’ll address some of the bridges that have significant needs that still have traffic on them.”

Timing of the project will be an issue, and the department is discussing that with the Coast Guard, Sweeney said. There are issues related to navigation and fisheries that will need to be considered, as well as the nearby attractions of the Fort Knox State Historic Site and the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory.

“We’re not going to do anything while the observation deck is open,” he said. “I think we’d probably look at a fall start and get it down during the winter before the observatory opened in the spring, then do a cleanup in the fall. We’d work around the Fort Knox and observatory schedules.”

The Waldo-Hancock Bridge was opened in 1931 and replaced the old ferry system that had run between Prospect and Bucksport. It operated as a toll bridge until 1953.

The bridge was undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation when DOT uncovered deterioration in the main cables that eventually forced the department to lower the weight limits on the bridge and to begin planning its replacement. The department dropped the weight limit to 24,000 pounds in July 2003 and increased it to 80,000 pounds later that year after crews had installed a $4 million support cable system. That limit was raised to 100,000 pounds in 2005.

The bridge was closed to traffic on Dec. 30, 2006, when the new Penobscot Narrows Bridge was opened.

rhewitt@bangordailynews.net

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