by Rick Kenyon

In mid-July, traffic into McCarthy had begun to increase. The lodges and restaurants were filling up, hoping to salvage a season that began very slowly—due in part to the September 11 tragedy, and further depressed by reports that the McCarthy Road was in poor shape, and the news that the road maintenance station in Chitina was being closed. The week before, the Anchorage Daily News, in an article entitled Road Wrangle, painted a sad picture.

“More than 80 percent of the vehicles that start down the McCarthy Road turn around before they reach Mile 10. Veterans of the drive tell tales of splintered axles, broken shocks and plenty of flat tires,” declared the story. “Now it appears that the road, already reputed to be one of the worst in Alaska, is going to get worse.”

On July 27, groans went up from a small crowd assembled near the Kennicott River as several large Department of Transportation & Public Facility (DOT&PF) trucks rolled to a stop in the right-of-way near the bridge, set up their equipment and the sparks began to fly from cutting torches and arc-welders. “Why are they doing this in the peak of our season?” lamented one business owner.

McCarthy area residents had gotten a hint of things to come back in March, when they received an Email from Sally Gibert, who owns property in McCarthy and works in Governor Knowle’s administration. “Apparently, the DOT folks in charge of bridge design have just discovered a deficiency in the original design of the existing footbridge—it’s apparently not stout enough for a pedestrian bridge,” said Sally. “The deficiency was discovered while they were evaluating the existing structure for suitability for a suspended pipeline,” she continued. Not many gave the information much credence as the bridge seemed to be actually overbuilt for foot traffic, and in fact had been used all summer by ATVs and even small vehicles after the bollards had again been removed by local residents.

Correspondence with DOT&PF’s Northern Region Director Ralph Swarthout later revealed that “additional lateral bracing will be installed in several locations,” although he stated that “I do not know of any design flaw in the bridges.” (Later, bridge engineer Drew Seilbach said this had indeed been a “design oversight.”) Swarthout also made an announcement not revealed in the Gibert message: “Motorized vehicle access to the main bridge will be restricted on both ends by the installation of new bollards, and both bridges will be narrowed in width at spot locations.” He also said that the estimated project cost was $230,000, including approximately $30,000 to narrow the bridges and prevent motorized vehicle access.

Speculation was rampant. Some people felt that the whole project was merely a ploy to use federal maintenance funds to restrict the bridge, while others thought it might be a pretense to prepare the bridge for a suspended fuel pipeline—something that has been advocated by Gibert and others since the footbridge only restriction on the Kennicott River Bridge makes hauling fuel and sewage across the river  a difficult and costly proposition. Still others thought the DOT might actually be strengthening the bridge to handle vehicle traffic.

Soon small crowds had gathered and heated arguments ensued. Although the majority of townspeople had originally favored restricting the new bridge to foot traffic only, with freight being pulled across by hand with small carts, momentum has shifted in recent years as the difficulties of supplying a mercantile town like McCarthy without the use of vehicles or other motorized equipment has become painfully evident. Deep pocket operations, such as the National Park Service, have been able to fly in fuel in huge transport aircraft at an additional dollar or so per gallon, compared to delivery by road. Others were forced to haul 55 gallon barrels over the bridge by hand, or by fording the river at great risk with tank trucks. Occasionally conditions allow safe passage over the ice in the winter, but even those efforts have sometimes ended in disaster. Over the past two years, something like 14 bollards, designed to prevent ATV or small vehicle use, have been installed by either DOT&PF or by Rich Kirkwood, the owner of the Kennicott Glacier Lodge, and all 14 have been removed by local residents. Tempers on both sides have flared.

About $100,000 spent on bridge over dry wash—while road received no maintenance.

Some people just lamented the fact that the state was spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars on such a questionable project after closing the Chitina Maintenance Station as a “cost-cutting” measure. The bridge across the Lakina River had almost washed out last summer, and only quick action by the Chitina personnel saved it. District area manager George LaVasseur in Valdez had pleaded for $100,000 to reinforce the bridge approaches with large rock to prevent further damage, but never got it. Last summer’s effort was only a stop-gap measure, and water has been slowly seeping under the road bed ever since. According to Clarence Catledge of the Taslina DOT&PF office, their request for a permit from the National Park Service to blast rock near Long Lake and haul the material to the Lakina has not been approved.

Still others complained that such a large project should have been bid out with one of our local contractors having an opportunity to do the work during the winter months, when traffic over the bridge is nil.

Steve Syren, who owns and operates the parking lot at the Kennicott River is also the underlying property owner where the road and bridge traverse his property. He had requested that Swarthout delay the project until after the busy tourist season, and also requested that no bollards or other impediments to travel be placed on his property.  Swarthout turned the request over to Jim Little, who is the Operations and Maintenance Director for DOT&PF in Fairbanks. Little responded, “Our current schedule shows we will be working in the shoulder months on this project.” When the trucks rolled in right at the peak of Syren’s season, he was not happy. This time Swarthout responded. “The shoulder months for our bridge workers is different than the shoulder months for your season.”

Bridge crew foreman Jay Bottom told us the project would run for 8 weeks. He explained that his crew works seven days on, then seven off and they had 4 weeks of work to do. They would be installing braces every 25 feet which bolt on to the huge beams that constitute the bridge structure. At the end of the project, they would be installing restrictions at three locations along the bridge, bringing the opening down to 52". Just before they leave the area, he said, they would be installing two bollards at each end of the west channel bridge, further restricting the opening to 36".

Earl Ratliff, acting foreman for the job, said, “They told me to put the bollards in the first thing—before we did the bracing. I told them, ‘OK, but in that case there won’t be any bracing. Once we put the bollards in we have no way to get across the river.’”

And how is the crew getting across the river? The same way locals and town merchants have been all summer—on 4-wheelers!

Faced with the hypocrisy of this action, Swarthout passed the buck. “I will pass this on to Jim Little for a response on what specific authorizations we have to allow motorized equipment use while performing maintenance on the facilities under our care,” said Swarthout. “I do know that we use motorized equipment elsewhere, such as sweepers and plows on our bike paths and sidewalks, where motorized use is not allowed for users of the facility.” No response from Little has been forthcoming.

A number of McCarthy Area Council and Coalition for Access to McCarthy people have been working together to try and come to some compromise position before DOT&PF actually installs the bollards.