Bridge Demo Hits a Glitch

WAITSBURG – The replacement of Waitsburg's Main Street Bridge hit another glitch this month, but the Port of Walla Walla stepped in to meet the resulting financial shortfall, for the second time.

At the July 19 city council meeting, City Manager Randy Hinchliffe gave a bridge update and informed council members that the contractors had run into an issue the day prior. Hinchliffe said there have been at least four bridges that existed prior to the recently demolished bridge. While digging to remove the foundation, the contractors ran into "huge sections of concrete" from one or more prior bridges that no one knew were there.

Hinchliffe said that when the city started the process for the bridge, the engineer came in and made test bore holes at sporadic spots around the bridge to determine what was underneath. They failed to find the foundations.

"It actually hit right in between this foundation block and essentially a giant piece of steel that was part of the truss bridge. There was about 6 inches on either side and the bore managed to miss both of them," he said.

Hinchliffe told council members that the design would need to be tweaked slightly to accommodate the new bridge's pier system, and while he didn't have clear numbers yet, the engineer estimated the cost at approximately $15,000.

Hinchliffe said he would have more specifics on the design changes at the August council meeting and that he would probably bring in Anderson Perry & Associates engineer Eric Zitterkopf to help explain the details.

After speaking further with the contractor, following the council meeting, it was determined that the cost to alter the bridge design would be closer to $40,000.

Hinchliffe approached the Port of Walla Walla Commissioners to see if they could once again help with funding. The Port had previously approved $100,000 in Economic Development Sales Tax Funds to offset a discrepancy of that amount between the original engineer's cost estimate and lowest actual contractor bid.

The Port Commissioners were agreeable to modifying the original grant amount to $150,000, since no funds have been withdrawn yet, and approved the increase.

"This should be enough to cover this and anything else that should come up," Hinchliffe said.

"The rest of the demolition is going fine. If we were going to face a change order it was most likely to happen during demolition since we weren't positive what existed underground. Once it gets to the piers and the girders, it starts to become pre-fab at that point," Hinchliffe told the Waitsburg council at their July meeting.