I exchanged a couple of e-mails this morning with Kelley Conway, P.E. for the town of Billerica, regarding repairing or replacing the bridge on Whipple Rd. that was damaged during the Spring floods. There is a good new (sort of), and a bad news story surrounding this issue.

First, the bad news: Billerica was denied funding from FEMA for damages related to the March 2010 flooding and for now, the town is looking at a deck replacement only. Additionally, unlike the
horse bridge in the town of Randolf, the state is offering no financial assistance. Maybe this would be a good cause for Representative Marc Lombardo and State Senator Donnelly to take up. At any rate, without some intervention, the Commonwealth will not provide any support for this project.

The good news: The town is currently in the process of getting a structural engineer under contract for design. Difficulties arise from time to time as a result of three towns being involved in cost sharing the design and repair of the bridge. Billerica and Wilmington are negotiating the cost of repairs, and Tewksbury has joined the discussion to share the cost of the new design.

In the end, a best case scenario is that the bridge will take at least a couple years to fix and reopen. As engineer Conway put it:

I anticipate we will get the contract moving shortly, but construction I really can only guess, probably a year from now? This Fall at the earliest…considering the snowfall to date and the potential for another spring thaw, we are most likely better off (in my opinion) waiting; especially, if a more advanced design is not forthcoming.

Speaking of advanced design, the town is working with FEMA to fund repairs under “hazard mitigation assistance”. Should this plan move forward, according to engineer Conway, “it would be for a much larger scale project than we are looking at right now”. It would be nice if the Board of Selectmen would assign a member or the Town Manager to speak for them on this issue to the Billerica Minutemen and the Lowell Sun, but I think engineer Conway has covered all of the bases.

I will check in with the town again toward the fall and update you all on this topic as best I can. I would like to thank Kelley Conway for taking the time to provide this important update in a manner much more promptly than I ever expected.

Be well and do what you can to avoid this horrible arctic temperature drop.

–Rick