DUMMERSTON — Plans by town officials to get repair work to the West Dummerston Covered Bridge completed by September have hit a snag.
According to Selectboard member Tom Bodett, the contractor who was awarded the bid on June 13 to repair the wing walls of the historic 1872 bridge had not been pre-qualified with the Vermont Agency of Transportation to do the work.
LaRock & Son of Guilford, the contractor that won unanimous approval from the board, is in the process of receiving state qualification.
“It was nobody's direct fault and everybody's indirect responsibility that LaRock's pre-qualification with the state did not include the specific type of work in the bid,” said Bodett in an email to The Commons last week. “Rocky thought he was pre-qualified, obviously, or he wouldn't have placed the bid. VTrans should have caught it earlier than they did, and Stevens [& Associates of Brattleboro, the engineering consultants] should have, too.
“That said, it was on nobody's radar at all and a forgivable error.”
On June 19, the Selectboard voted unanimously to re-advertise for a new set of bidders.
As a result, the project will be delayed for several weeks while the town advertises for new bidders and submits addenda to the original specifications for the project.
The 267-foot-long, single-lane bridge was rebuilt in the early 1990s. But during repairs to the covered bridge deck in 2009, Bodett said workers found that the wing walls supporting the approaches to the bridge were badly deteriorated and in need of an estimated $280,000 in urgent repairs.
Federal grant money will pay for the bulk of the repair costs, Bodett said. The remainder will come from the town's West River Crossing Fund, a reserve fund to pay for maintenance and repairs to the covered bridge and the recently-repaired Green Iron Bridge.
Bodett said the town still hopes to get the work done before school reopens in September, and certainly before the crush of tourists arrive for the Dummerston Apple Pie Festival and foliage season.
“Nov. 1 would be the latest for total completion,” he said, “but we would hope to have it open for traffic before that.”