The process to improve five Yelm bridges owned by the City of Centralia across the Centralia Canal is moving forward and backward at the same time.
After the Centralia City Council approved amending a contract with an engineering firm to evaluate the bridges in August, the city is unsure of how to pay for the nearly $1 million in repairs, but it does have a plan.
Yelm residents expressed concerns about the quality of the bridges after they were told fire engines, emergency services and other important vehicles would be too heavy to cross the bridges following a recent weight capacity load rating.
Sargent Engineers, the engineering firm that completed the load ratings, provided the city with three potential engineering options, including adding more girders to the bridges, installing new bridges and modifying the current bridges. The city determined that adding girders wouldn’t remove the load ratings, and installing new bridges may not be fully necessary.
Instead, it chose to modify the bridges similarly to what the city did with one of the six total Yelm bridges Centralia owns this summer. The Lindsay Spooner Bridge, located off of Cook Road Southeast, received four I-beams to support the center of the bridge.
“This is similar to the option that Sargent has outlined for the other five bridges that we are concerned about at this time,” Centralia Interim City Manager Amy Buckler said during a Tuesday, Nov. 12, council meeting. “That option would also replace the decking and the railings on the bridge, and it would solve the problem with the load ratings. So we have asked Sargent to proceed with the next step in the contract, which is to prepare construction plans in accordance with this type of option.”
The estimated cost per bridge is approximately $180,000, which nears $1 million for the five bridges, but Buckler said how the project gets funded has not been determined at this time. The matter will return to the City Council in early 2025 for more discussion.
“I also mentioned that the timing for the bridge improvements would be impacted by whether or not federal permits would be required for this work,” Buckler said. “We have had some preliminary conversations with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees the hydroproject and the bridges, and they are indicating that this work would likely require federal permits. That is unfortunate for the timeline because it would likely extend it.”
Centralia Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston empathized with residents affected by the bridges’ load ratings and those anxiously awaiting progress from the city.
“I’m grateful that as a council we were able to take very quick action to get a contract with Sargent in place to start to explore this and that we continue to do what we can as quickly as we can,” she said. “For those of you impacted by this, know that we are doing whatever we can within our purview and that we are concerned for you as well.”
