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In April, when workers removed the Bushkill Street Bridge connecting Tatamy to Forks Township, borough officials and local business owners were told the replacement would take six to eight weeks.
Nearly six months later, the bridge is still out and local officials say workers from Kriger Construction in Dickson City haven’t been to the site since July.
“The scariest part for us is that the work site isn’t even secure, and they have half a bridge knocked down,” said Deanne Werkheiser, Tatamy’s secretary/treasurer, who said the area is secured only by bright orange, plastic roll fencing that doesn’t deter the curious from climbing onto the construction site.
The situation has borough officials on high alert as they prepare for next month’s Vegstock, a wellness festival expected to draw more than 2,000 visitors to Bushkill Street right where the bridge is out.
“We are taking it upon ourselves to block off the area because no one else will,” said Amanda Grega, who is the executive chef of the Kellyn Foundation, the nonprofit at the Llantrisant Retreat & Wellness Center on Bushkill Street and host of the Oct. 12 event.
“We are going to put up wood barricades and signs telling people to keep out. We are also stationing volunteers to make sure no one comes too close to the bridge,” Grega said.
She expects about 50 vendors to be stationed along Bushkill Street and the Tatamy bike trail, which is part of the Two River’s Trail System connecting the Easton area to the popular Delaware & Lehigh Canal Trail.
“I walk my dog on that path all the time,” Grega said. “I’ll be walking my dog at dusk and see people going behind the signs. Luckily, I haven’t seen anyone be too destructive, but no matter what, you are on the edge of a bridge.”
Jan Delvy, co-owner of The Grist Mill House, an art studio and woodworking shop next to the bridge, has had a portion of her parking lot taken up by cement barricades and construction equipment since the project started in April.
Delvy received money so Kriger could use a portion of her property to store equipment, but she never expected construction to take this long.
She’s had potential customers call her and say they couldn’t find the store because the bridge is out, though Delvy said the spring and summer are generally her slow months. The fall is her busy time, when customers stock up on Christmas decorations and holiday gifts.
“What I’m more concerned is the safety of my parking lot and the safety of the kids who ride past that bridge on bikes every day,” she said.
A project manager from Kriger didn’t immediately return phone calls Monday and Tuesday.
In order to work in the creek, construction workers needed to set up a cofferdam, typically made of sandbags, that keeps the water out of the area. On a recent visit to the site, the sandbag dam was in place, but the area behind it was filled with water and some of the bags could be seen downstream from the work site.
“At what point is it considered abandonment of a work site? The dam is broken again and sandbags are all over,” Werkheiser said.
Northampton County started working with the Dickson City company in October 2017 as part of a public-private partnership, also known as the P3 project.
The first-of-its-kind partnership was the centerpiece of former Northampton County Executive John Brown’s administration.
The idea is that rather than have the county go through its normal bidding process and hire individual firms to perform architectural designs, engineering and construction, the P3 process has those firms team up and offer comprehensive bids.
Proponents of the P3 system argue it gets projects done faster, and Brown contended it would result in financial savings for the county.
Kriger was approved to replace 33 county-owned bridges at a cost of $36 million.
But the work hasn’t gone smoothly.
The deal with Kriger didn’t account for the need to buy permanent easements for relocating utility lines and making bridges wider, nor did it account for the cost of temporary easements to store equipment during construction, said Northampton County’s Director of Administration Charles Dertinger.
“Notwithstanding legal fees, just this year alone the cost for temporary easements was $75,000. There are a significant number of permanent easements that are even more expensive,” said Dertinger, who also sits on the Northampton County General Purpose Authority overseeing the contract with Kriger.
The price has jumped to $38.4 million including unforeseen expenses and legal fees.
Dertinger said Kriger never gave a “real reason” why work was stopped on the Bushkill Street Bridge, a 100-foot-span over Bushkill Creek that he said carried an average of 150 vehicles per day.
“I have never had a real reason given to us. They claimed there were high water incidents,” Dertinger said, but a stream gauge monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey showed there were only three relatively minor events this year that shouldn’t have affected the work.
During a Sept. 17 General Purpose Authority meeting, Dertinger told several disgruntled Tatamy officials and business owners the county could spend millions of dollars to get out of the contract, but that would likely be followed by a drawn-out legal battle that could delay further construction on the bridges for years to come.
Current Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure last year called the P3 project “a mess.”
The General Purpose Authority has paid Kriger $8.4 million so far, Dertinger said.
To hopefully spur some action, the GPA at its Sept. 17 meeting approved a motion to release a milestone payment to Kriger subject to “substantial completion” of the Bushkill Street Bridge and a bridge on Glase Road in Moore Township.
Dertinger said “substantial completion” would mean the bridge is open to traffic, though at this point there may not be enough time to pave it before winter. In that case, Kriger would have to put down a temporary layer of material on the traffic lanes until they could pave in the spring.
The GPA withheld the majority of the $2.1 million payment due to Kriger in May. The authority has paid $926,000 of that amount so far, and would release the balance once those two bridges are open to traffic, Dertinger said.
Morning Call reporter Christina Tatu can be reached at 610-820-6583 or [email protected]
NORTHAMPTON COUNTY’S P3 PROJECT
Bridges open to traffic
Evergreen Road Bridge in Lehigh Township, a 23-foot span that was rehabilitated.
Lefevre Road Bridge in Stockertown, a 53-foot span that was replaced.
Ackermanville Road Bridge in Washington Township, a 24-foot span that was replaced.
East Factoryville Road Bridge in Washington Township, a 47-foot span that was replaced.
Ott Drive Bridge in Lower Mount Bethel Township, an 18-foot span that was replaced.
South Cottonwood Road Bridge in Lehigh Township, a 28-foot span that was replaced.
Knauss Road Bridge in Bushkill Township, a 24-foot span that was replaced.
Bridges under construction
Bushkill Street Bridge in Tatamy, a 100-foot span to be replaced.
Glase Road Bridge in Moore Township, a 79-foot span to be rehabilitated.
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