Calderwood Engineering Dec. 15 recommended Alna replace Ben Brook Bridge on Egypt Road. The firm and selectmen favor it so far over four other options. It would cost the most, $570,000, and last the longest, at 75 years, according to the preliminary design report. Selectmen voted unanimously to have the Richmond firm design further.

The firm’s Eric Calderwood and First Selectman Ed Pentaleri said grants could help meet costs for a new bridge. 

Calderwood expects the project would get a Maine Department of Environmental Protection one for $125,000. Because the project would benefit fish passage, other grants are possible that might make the new bridge cost the town the least of the five options, Pentaleri said.

The project would replace the 1955 bridge with a 26-foot, clear span one with pre-stressed, pre-cast concrete slabs and concrete footings with a concrete stem cast on top. Replacement with a steel arch instead would cost about $520,000 and last 40 to 45 years, the report states.

Maine Department of Transportation letters in 2013 and this year called for the town to fix the bridge or risk weight limits and closure. A wall’s $40,000 fix around 2014 left the root problem of water flowing over the wall and causing frost heaves, Pentaleri said. “(So) it’s not necessarily going to be the smartest thing for us to do, to just go with the lowest cost solution if we’re just going to end up having to spend more money on the same thing again a few years later.”

If the town only corrects unstable slopes, the old bridge could have another 10 years, the firm’s report states. Calderwood added in the meeting, “That’s just ... a guesstimate. It’s hard to say exactly when a structure is going to fail.” When it does, it will likely be during a big rainstorm, creating a hole down to the stream – a hole people might not see in the storm, he said. “You don’t want anybody driving into a big hole in the road (so this option) is not a good choice for the town.”

The town could stabilize the downstream stone retaining wall, put in catch basins and regrade the roadway. This gets no grant money, costs about $205,000 and would be good for up to 10 years, according to the report.

A $50,000 option is to pull the culvert and permanently close that Egypt Road section, affecting 25 homes and Hidden Valley Nature Center’s entrance and sending travelers more than 10 miles around; no more bridge to maintain, but “this benefit does not outweigh the shortfalls ...,” the report states.

Calderwood told meeting-goers at the town office and over Zoom, the bridge is “not unsafe” to drive over. He said MDOT sends out a lot of “bad bridge” letters, and when towns do nothing, the bridges can end up closed, and then the towns decide they need a bridge in December, he said. “We’re not there ... rest assured.”

Ralph Hilton suggested first doing drainage work “on both sides before ... the culvert” and then looking long term.

Past selectman David Abbott recalled being in office both when the town put a culvert within the culvert and when the town fixed the banking. “I think that the bridge option is the way to go.”

When there are quotes and more is known about potential grant money, the board would seek the town’s OK on the project, Pentaleri said. He added, if grant efforts fail, the other options for the site could get another look.

In September, the board named Calderwood Engineering to engineer and inspect work there for $25,056. Pentaleri said Dec. 20, the direction the board gave the firm Dec. 15 costs nothing more because it falls within that contract.

Other than on the lone agenda item, the meeting had no public comment section. Pentaleri asked attendees for patience as selectmen try to “retool” it to help avoid another meeting like the one Dec. 1, which he noted had yelling, chanting and interrupting. He said public comment should be respectful, orderly and not derail the rest of the agenda.

The meeting was Pentaleri’s first since his election a day earlier. He made a “holiday request” that everyone reflect on how they have conducted themselves in recent months’ meetings. Doug Baston said not putting residents’ requested items on the agenda, including his – to further discuss his request that Second Selectman Linda Kristan resign – was “a really bad start.” 

“If you wanted to run the meetings, you could have continued on the selectboard,” Pentaleri said.  “Can we not start with the nastiness,” Baston asked.