Sections of the old U.S. Highway 41 bridge over Nickajack Lake are being disassembled next to the replacement bridge in Haletown, Tenn.Like a decomposing skeleton, the 1929-era steel Parker truss-style bridge over the Tennessee River on U.S. Highway 41 in Marion County, Tenn., is coming down a piece at a time.
Crews started work this month on the two smaller truss spans, Tennessee Department of Transportation spokeswoman Jennifer Flynn said this week.
“They are lowering them onto barges where they will be taken away and dismantled,” Flynn said.
Work on the two larger, central truss spans has not begun.
“They will be removed at a later date as soon as TDOT and the contractor finalize removal plans for the larger spans,” she said. “Because they are larger, they will be handled differently than the smaller spans.”
Julie Alcantara, project manager for Volkert Inc., the firm overseeing the project for TDOT, said one of the small spans has already been lowered onto a barge for dismantling.
Alcantara said work crews on site now vary in number depending on the work.
“We’ve received a lot of compliments from the public and everybody was thrilled to have the bridge open again,” she said of the replacement project.
The old bridge was permanently closed to traffic on Jan. 9, 2012. The two spans are just 30 feet apart.
The new bridge was opened for traffic in December. During construction, traffic was rerouted onto Interstate 24 between Haletown and Jasper.
The old bridge cost $488,848 when it was constructed in 1929. It was raised to compensate for the water level in 1966 with the completion of Nickajack Dam but remained a narrow, two-lane crossing just 20 feet wide.
In 2000, TDOT studied what it would take to preserve the former toll bridge as a pedestrian walkway. Estimates then to clean and replace steel parts, install pedestrian-friendly handrails and fencing and install new decking ran about $1.6 million for a timber deck and $1.9 million for concrete.
Unofficial annual maintenance estimates far exceeded $125,000 for a pedestrian bridge, and officials estimated that when the bridge inevitably grew too old for renovation, its demolition would cost $800,000.
The $21.6 million project begun in March 2011 to replace the old bridge had an original completion date of August 2013, but there were delays to set piers deeper into the riverbed and to come up with a new plan for erecting the steel structure after TDOT balked at contractor Britton Bridge’s first plan.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or twitter.com/BenBenton or www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.