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Limits Back On
The weight limits on the Taft Pond Road bridge in Pomfret are back on after last summer's storm damaged the abutments. Limnda Lemmon photo.
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
POMFRET — Once again the town of Pomfret will set about weighing its options while a weight limit has again been set on the Taft Pond Bridge.
The weight limit is again reduced to “Cars Only / No Trucks / 3-Ton Limit” until it’s remediated. Those are the same limits imposed before repairs were made to the bridge last summer.
According to Town Hall, the State Department of Transportation had divers in the Mashamoquet Brook in December inspecting the abutments of the bridge. They discovered serious scour of the southern abutment of Taft Pond Road Bridge caused by the severe flooding last July.
“A bridge scour is the removal of sediment such as sand and gravel from around bridge abutments or piers. Hydrodynamic scour, caused by fast-flowing water, can carve out scour holes, compromising the integrity of a structure. In the U.S. bridge scour is one of the three main causes of bridge failure (the other two being collision and overloading). It’s estimated that 60 percent of all bridge failures result from scour and other hydraulic-related causes. It is the most common cause of highway bridge failure in the U.S.,” according to Wikipedia.
That storm last July also washed out Taft Pond Road at Chase Hill Road.
The state noticed a large amount of debris deposited downstream of the bridge and suspected a large tree had been swept under the bridge possibly causing damage to the abutments and stream channel.
Due to the identified damage to the understructure of the abutment, DOT was considering closing the bridge, but went with limits instead. This damage was not present earlier when extensive repairs were done last summer.
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