Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Public Works Director Mark Storey has officially put a hold on a project to replace the Edmondson Bridge on Sand Road near Pullman. Now under historical review by the Army Corps of Engineers, the bridge will remain at least until next year.
The bridge design is what is known as a Luten-arch concrete bridge, named after Daniel Luten, one of the nation's most influential bridge engineers of the early 1900s. Luten and his affiliated contracting companies built thousands of his patented designs across the country.
“They are now relatively rare across the United States,” said Kitty Henderson, executive director of the Historic Bridge Foundation, based in Austin, Texas. The foundation was notified in early September by the Corps about the plan to replace the Edmondson Bridge.
This is the first bridge in Whitman County that the Historic Bridge Foundation is involved in.
“It's a federal procedure. This happens quite a bit,” Henderson said.
What makes this one bridge potentially unique?
“They are very swiftly disappearing,” said Patricia Cook Graesser of the Army Corps of Engineers, Seattle District. “That's the concern.”
The Corps' survey work continues on the bridge, which is also eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.
The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA) calls for federal agencies to take into account the effects of their work on historic properties.
“It has to be significant in some way, by its engineering or person,” said Henderson.
Now that the project is delayed, the $107,000 in concrete girders already ordered by Whitman County Public Works will wait in a lot in Spokane.
No charge will be assessed for storage, while an adjustment may be made in transportation cost to next year's rate.
“There's people in the world that don't charge us for when we have bad luck,” Storey said.
While the Edmondson Bridge is on hold, a $1.8 million project to improve safety on four miles of road it connects to is underway. The work will widen the 24-to-26-foot road to 28-30 feet.
“This is a high-speed gravel road,” said Storey.
On a stretch of S-curves, two miles south of Highway 270, contractor M.A DeAtley Construction of Clarkston will blast through a basalt rock bluff in order to widen the curves.
The road will be closed to through traffic from Oct. 17 until Nov. 11.
Storey said he expects the road project to finished by Christmas.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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