A troubled bridge over local waters Allentown dam renovation project has 16-year history BY JANE MEGGITT Staff Writer Allentown must weigh the merits of having a detour or a temporary bridge while its major thoroughfare undergoes renovation. Decay and cracks can be seen in the concrete of Monmouth County's U-12 bridge in downtown Allentown. The Board of Chosen Freeholders and Monmouth County Engineer Joseph Ettore presented these two options to a large crowd at Allentown High School on March 18 during a public information meeting about the reconstruction of the Allentown Pond dam and the county's U-12 bridge. The bridge, which is located on South Main Street over Doctor's Creek, is the main route between Allentown and neighboring Upper Freehold. Repairs were made to the bridge in February 2001 when a hole formed in the concrete deck. At that time, a steel repair plate with an asphalt overlay was installed, resulting in weight limit reduction to 10 tons. However, the structure has continued to deteriorate and needs immediate repair. Ettore showed the crowd current photographs of the bridge with corrosion, upstream fascia girder loss and web holes. "It's corroded completely through the lower web," he said. The Allentown Pond dam's spillway has deficient hydraulic capacity as its flow is controlled by manually operated timber gates, original to the circa 1920s structure, according to Ettore. He explained that the gates rise when an individual lifting mechanism slides between two restraints on either side and that deterioration has caused seepage through the stop boards. Ettore also said that the dam has exposed stone masonry as well as missing and deteriorated concrete pargeting on the northwest wing wall. The county has alsomarked hollow-sounding areas of northwest wall beneath the bridge, he said. "In addition to failed areas, areas on deck are suspect," Ettore said. "There's serious concern about the rest of the bridge structure." Monmouth County inspects the bridge on a monthly basis, according to Ettore. The renovation project has a 16-year history, which began in 1992 when the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) provided a grant for the inspection and evaluation of the pond and dam. State legislation permitted the DEP to assign ownership andmaintenance responsibilities for the pond, dam and bridge. The DEP determined that Monmouth County owns the road and bridge and that Allentown owns the pond. The county and the borough share ownership of the spillway, according to Ettore. In 1993, the borough and the county entered into an agreement to fund an inspection of the structure and submit a final report to the DEP. The study concluded that the dam is inadequate and needs replacement. In 1996, the county awarded French Parrello Associates, of Wall, with a contract to redesign the bridge and dam. Over the following ten years, the county worked with the state's historic preservation office on the project as it required both environmental and historic permits, according to Ettore. "There were a lot of details to look at," he said, including planning for fire, emergency service and utility needs. In 2007, the DEP and the New Jersey attorney general mandated that the county inspect the dam biweekly and after rainfall of more than 1 inch in 24 hours. The county also had to provide the state withmonthly progress reports and a reconstruction schedule. The dam and bridge reconstruction was supposed to commence in January. The state said failure to start would result in a directive to drain the pond and up to $25,000-per-day fines for Monmouth County and Allentown, according to Ettore. However, the county and borough held many meetings with the DEP, which granted the project an extension to work out final details and receive public input, he said. The original project schedule required bid advertisements to go out on Aug. 31, 2007. The county received five bids on Oct. 16, 2007. The low bid of $4.9 million was close to the engineer's estimate of $5 million, Ettore said. The original project path includes the county paying for all of the bridge and roadway repair, which would cost $3.4 million and $936,000 respectively. Allentown and the county would both pay $260,000 for spillway repair costs. The county would pay $22,500 toward water main costs and the borough would pay $9,500 for water main costs. The original project would take 18 months to complete. The plan called for an eight-mile detour route for regular traffic down Route 526 to Sharon Station Road and down Route 539. Emergency vehicles and school buses would have a two-mile detour route down Breza Road, which the county would pave for that purpose, according to Ettore. The county is now presenting an alternative plan to complete the reconstruction with the aid of a temporary vehicular bridge. The bridge would have a 15 mph speed limit. The alternative proposal would take between 18-22 months to complete and would cost $6.4 million. In order to proceed with either plan, the county would need resolutions of support fromAllentown and Upper Freehold Township. If the entities involved agree on moving forward with the alternative plan, the county would have to revise bid documents, execute a borough/county cost-share agreement and rebid and award the construction contract.