The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

April 7, 2009

Amboy bridge to close

Decision pleases preservationists

By Dan Linehan

MANKATO — An old bridge near Amboy that was slated to be replaced with a modern crossing will instead be closed, the Blue Earth County Board decided Tuesday.

The Board had previously voted to replace the County Road 147 bridge over the Blue Earth River with a new span, at an estimated cost of $1.6 million, including about $900,000 in federal funding.

But the county’s plan hit a historical hurdle when Amboy residents said the 1901 Dodd Ford bridge was worth saving.

And because of the federal funding, the Federal Highway Administration decided to put the bridge through its historic review process. The end result was supposed to be a project that satisfied both the county and the preservationists.

From the county’s perspective, it failed.

County Engineer Al Forsberg said the only option the FHWA approved was a strengthening of the bridge for light vehicle traffic.

Such a bridge couldn’t support the heavy farm-to-market machinery that Forsberg says is the primary purpose of the county’s rural highway network. A big combine could simply collapse the bridge, which has an outdated design so that a single failure could bring down the whole structure.

So, after six years of negotiations that included two public meetings in Amboy, the county decided no project is better than the FHWA’s option. The county plans to begin discussions to turn over the bridge and that section of road to Shelby Township. The bridge is slated to be closed in a little over a month.

Preservationists are pleased.

“It’s good for us, it means we retain the historic property,” said Lisa Durkee, who has helped lead the effort to preserve the bridge and the natural landscape around it.

She said Amboy has neither property on the National Register of Historic Places nor very many recreation areas, and the bridge area provides both.

Durkee said someone has been hired to nominate the bridge for national register consideration.

The county’s decision to close the bridge is a mixed blessing from the perspective of preservation, said Dennis Gimmestad, a compliance officer for the State Historic Preservation Office who has consulted with the FHWA.

“I guess in one sense it’s good news because it means that it won’t be replaced,” he said.

But it also leaves the bridge without a steward or a purpose.

“If it doesn’t serve any use, it’s difficult to provide the means of keeping the structure up,” he said.

The Blue Earth River continues to scour at the bridge’s foundation, and without repairs it will eventually collapse.

Gimmestad said developing a long-term strategy for historic preservation takes time, sometimes more than a decade.

But that’s better than replacing the bridge, which couldn’t be reversed, he said.

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