Covell pg 1 6-3-10
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- Category: Past Issues
Bridge Replacement
Barr Inc. is building a new bridge on Covell Road in Pomfret. Mashamoquet Brook has been diverted so footings can be poured. Linda Lemmon photo.
Covell Rd.
bridge
replacement
underway
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
POMFRET --- By the end of the year, the shortcut will be back, bright and shiny and new.
Barr Inc. has set to work replacing the Covell Road bridge and First Selectman Jim Rivers said the town anticipates that the work will be finished by the end of the calendar year.
Barr was hired this year to replace the whole bridge. State bridge inspectors, on their last inspection, found too much corrosion on the I-beam supports and ordered it closed immediately in 2008.
The bridge is very very old — old enough to have stone abutments, Rivers said. The abutments are being replaced as is the bridge structure. Townspeople use the bridge, which has a 10-ton limit, extensively as a shortcut.
The Mashamoquet Brook has been diverted and Rivers said the company has poured the sub-footing.
The cost of the replacement is about $1 million, Rivers said. About 80 percent of the total is coming from a federal bridge replacement program. The remaining 20 percent is coming from the town's budget. The town had hoped that the "shovel ready" project federal stimulus program might have been used for the town's 20 percent, but that did not pan out.