Essex County DPW Meeting Minutes

PLEASE WRITE LETTERS. Here are the minutes from the Essex County DPW meeting from last week. (Keep in mind I’ve already commented previously on this meeting as it was in the past…but with some new things said…I feel the need to clarify)
Mr. Monty was asking where the funding is, and how I keep saying funding is available.
– I have been emailing DPW grant information for weeks/months. Preserve NY Funds, Federal Funding programs, BRIDGE NY funds, RAISE funding, Extra CHIPS funding, Northern Border Regional Commission State Economic & Infrastructure Development Investment Program FY2022 etc.
All available for grants for bridges in Upstate NY.
In Response to the DPW bridge safety concerns…
-We have shown them how the bridges can be made safe again. -We have shown them the restoration process that includes three inspections. -We have shown them how every single part of the bridge is worked on, and how this process has worked on bridges all across the US. -We have shown them how the bridge load rating can be increased, and confirmed it with multiple engineers including someone who ran the NYS Thruway Authority(although he wanted to visit the bridge to confirm). -I’ve talked with Multiple engineering companies across the US, bridge experts, historical bridge experts, companies inside of NY, and every single one of them mentions these bridges need to be saved.
– “Some” supervisors seem confused on the funding, solutions, restoration, location of bridges, and other issues…however….I’ve asked and invited them all to come out to hear what we have to offer multiple times, and hear our solutions with no response from them. I’d love to speak with them and take a walk to just talk preservation. To show them why it is necessary. I’m here to help in ANY way that I can.
-Our solutions don’t have to be the way, we just want the county to HELP rather than to stall. We need everyone to keep writing letters. A face to face meeting will be much more productive and friendly. Asking questions, hearing community concerns, and being productive.
-I’m here to help. I’m not here to be a giant pain. Our community is asking for help from the County. -Just once we would like to hear “This is what we are trying to do”….instead of coming up with reasons why it shouldn’t be done. -Let’s work TOGETHER to find a solution. We can do this, but we need your help Essex and Clinton County.

DPW MEETING MINUTES 5/14/21:
DOUGAN: That’s the only resolution I have unless anybody has any questions on my report I would request to get right into the discussion. Last month you had asked if I could talk to you about our bridge program in general and so in order to do that I would ask Todd Hodgson and Gary Rancore to present that and then I’ll come back up for questions.

HODGSON: Good morning. This is Essex County DPW’s presentation on the Asset Management Bridge Maintenance and Replacement Plan. We have a hand out on this presentation. We will fairly quickly get through this.
Bridge maintenance and replacement regulations this is what Essex County is required to abide by. Essex County started inspecting bridges back in 1968, they inspected bridges for the County and on county roads also for towns and villages at that time, both towns and villages owned and maintained some of their own structures. Back in 1987, that’s when things changed dramatically as far as bridge inspection is concerned. After the I-90 bridge over Schoharie Creek collapsed that catapulted NYS DOT into taking over the inspection program previously there wasn’t qualifications for inspectors so actually the Essex County Superintendent at that time did those inspections but once that collapse took place DOT took over that inspection program making specific requirements for inspectors and also adding a number of categories to the inspection.
So this is the bridge rating system, it’s hard to see but one, is totally failed. Three, is serious deterioration, five is moderate deterioration, and seven is new condition with kind of a range between the two so overall, Essex County’s bridge condition is somewhere around a 5.6 and although not very legible off to the right hand side is a list of at least most of the bridges that we have so you can kind of see the gradation. We have a number that are in that red to orange category overall our average is not too bad.
Bridge inventory – Essex County itself has 67 bridges and there are 68 town bridges maintained by Essex county a total of 135 bridges, roughly a $170 million in assets. This doesn’t include all structures though the Village of Saranac Lake for instance owns and maintains their own bridge or maybe two bridges. There are three bridges on the list for DOT that are not currently inspected those would be retired structures. There are thirteen not listed or inspected by DOT, they are not currently on Essex County’s asset list we’ll see what happens here in the future with those and there’s eight pending bridge inventory additions those are ones that graduated to bridge classification meaning over 20 feet. So, just to leave this one thought in your mind there are bridges that transition in and out of this program that is regulated by DOT.
This is just for your information; this is a bridge inventory by town. So county and town bridges, and the distribution of them.
I’ll let Gary handle the discussion on the top twenty bridges.

RANCORE: So this is our bridge replacement plan that we use in preparing, there’s a twenty some page hand out for your use. The column titles the town, feature carried, feature crossed, its 2020 rating, and again, that’s 2 being the worse, 7 being the best, the tentative schedule for work most of them are complete replacements, some are vacant. The detour and miles kind of nice to know and the AADT is average annual daily traffic so that’s generally how many vehicles use that road and then there’s features.
So in that hand out we have, the one we are using as an example is the River Road extension over Outlet Brook in the Town of North Elba. Its condition rating is 2, again the AADT is about 1249 cars per day. Its detour is going to be 2.6 miles and it’s between the Village Lake Placid Fire Department and the Village itself and we are working on replacing that bridge. The main street project is kind of messing with our schedule, the construction so.
Next is Montcalm Street in Ticonderoga, its condition rating is not so bad 3.931. Traffic, it sees 7,000 cars a day, detour is 2.3 miles and then it’s located in Ticonderoga downtown business district.
Lastly, is Morrison Road over Styles Brook in the Town of Keene. It’s condition rate is not so bad, 4.391. It sees 45 cars a day, detour is not available mostly forest and farm so there’s woodlands and such and its replacement is schedule for 2025.

HODGSON: One thing to just point out, just like the I-90 bridge collapse but you can see the tape measure that’s underneath the footing for that bridge so that bridge, the abutment is sitting on nothing so this is what you would call a scour critical bridge and that’s way this is a very high importance.
Just skipping through these and you can read these in your packet with the estimated construction costs for each of these bridges. Town of Lewis, Town of Elizabethtown, Town of North Hudson, Tracy Road, Town of Elizabethtown, Keene, Town of Lewis, Town of Ticonderoga another high volume bridge, Town of St. Armand, Elizabethtown, Crown Point, Elizabethtown, North Hudson, Newcomb, Town of Lewis.
So, we’re taking a look at the ten year planning period, if you look at what Essex County has done in the last ten years as far as capital improvement plan, regarding bridges Essex County has invested roughly $40.4 million in bridges so that distribution, Essex County’s portion has been $18 million and that’s with some miscellaneous grant funds within Essex County DPW’s budget. Federal Highway which is the major contributor of funding for bridges in Essex County, roughly $15 million. FEMA and natural disaster, Hurricane Irene that contributed about $7 million to that overall budget and if you look at the inventory condition that pretty well keeps up the maintenance, that cost distribution now the FEMA portion, that $7 million if you look at 2010, there is a slight uptick in the condition rating of Essex County bridges as a result of that additional infusion of funds but really our goal for safety and a number of other reasons is condition rating of 6. This is a looking forward 10-year capital plan for the Board’s consideration an investment of $43.4 million and distribution being Essex County’s fortune, $16 million, FHWA $18 million and because we don’t budget for disasters our goal would be to offer a FHWA programs to take the place at about $9.3 million so this just a quick overview of that bridge program in its origin.

DOUGAN: Thanks Todd, thanks Gary for trying to talk the specifics of things that we look at as I prioritize bridges. As I have said to the board the last couple of months, we look at the number of 5.0, once it’s below 5.0 of DOT’s rating it may not be something we have to do an immediate project to but it’s starting to be an area of concern. Once it’s under a 5.0 that means it’s starting to have enough deterioration that we may have to close it down or do other things to it. I told you last time there are roughly 22 bridges that were lower than 5.0, so I asked these guys to give you a little bit of information that you can look through your packet.
One of the bridges that’s not really on that list but it’s there because it’s no longer inspected by the DOT is the bridge there in Keeseville and there are two bridges in Keeseville that are a concern and as I said, I have nothing against that bridge I understand its historical significance however, with what’s in front of us with the dollars that are there and with what Mr. Palmer highlighted last time we discussed this about how limited the funding really is just to keep up with the depreciating assets over the last ten years, you’ve invested $40 million dollars, that’s in working bridges not the ones that have been closed. So these decisions are yours but I’m telling you how we prioritize things. This board makes those decisions but how we prioritize things whether they are open right now, how much traffic they have, if there’s any other detour, any other way in there okay? So this discussion is going to lead into at some point, a request for a bridge bond. The number that we have up there on the board right now for a bridge bond is over $16 million dollars over the next ten years. I’m sure that Dan is saying, no way, no way. The last time we did a bridge bond was in 2016, we asked for a bridge bond that was about $5 million dollars. We spent that about $5 million dollars by the time we did closing costs, fees and everything else it was about $4.8. We spent that money along with some Federal aid money, along with some FEMA money, along with a grant from the Nature Conservancy and a little bit of CHIPS money to do 13 structures. Of those 13 structures, one of them was brand new being it was a culvert because of DEC’s regulations that needed to be upsized to meet the criteria for the bridge. One of them was a complete rehabilitation in St. Armand and the other eleven were replacement structures and that was again, one of our funding sources. Federal aid funded one of those. Bridge New York funded one of those. FEMA funded one of those and then that project that Nature Conservancy came up with so. The guys kind of stick through it our plan has generally been 3 bridges a year. Three bridges a year it means really that really 9 bridges are in the pipeline in any town. I’ll call it year one, I’ve got three bridges that are in for preliminary design, three bridges that were in preliminary design the year before so they are now going to permitting and right away and then three that are in construction so just keep trying to duplicate that. Why do we pick three because the number is almost 150 bridges if those bridges are going to last 50 years, simple math, right? We’re going to keep up with them. That trend shows that they are depreciating assets so if we do three bridges a year with the 20 or 22 that I’ve listed right now that are 5.0 that means seven years from now maybe I have those, if nothing else comes up and chances are that 5.9 that we are at right now is now not going to be better as other things have started to fail in that same seven years so basically that’s how we manage the bridge program. That’s what was asked last time to give an idea of how we can manage it, how we prioritize things that’s how we do it out on DPW.

TYLER: Jim is there any indication from Federal infrastructure money that it’s possible that the county is going to be a recipient of some of that money?

DOUGAN: I haven’t seen any specifics yet. We did just apply for Bridge New York again and that was funded, that’s a New York program that’s been out there. Maybe Dan or Shaun or somebody has been talking to the higher up legislators that know better than I do. I haven’t seen anything specifically carved out for us yet.

GILLILLAND: I think it’s still up in the trenches and fight with the big parties right now until they get into that and how they are going to distribute the money. I’ll keep an eye on it.

DELORIA: Jim when your bond proposal is going to eventually come before the board, if you took a ten-year plan and broke it down to a five-year that necessarily doesn’t mean it’s going to be a $22 million bond project. How would that stack up, on five-years based on the current 20 bridges that we’re looking at replacing? Can you bring us a five-year plan as well as a ten-year so we can look at those numbers?

DOUGAN: Yeah, I can break the numbers down. We already, Gary has already presented the year that we would project to do some things. Our plan has been generally, our plan has been to bring the smaller or smaller dollar amount, smaller span easier bridges through the bridge bond and we’re trying to take the bigger bridges through that Federal aid process. The Federal aid process cost more money but it’s at least 80% Federal money and sometimes it’s an additional 15% State Marchicelli fund so even though they cost more because of the red tape that’s involved, there’s a lot of administrative requirements, there’s a much higher engineering standard that they put through, I say engineering standard that might not be the correct term, engineering process that takes a lot of time. I think we’ve been doing good engineering standard of things but the engineering process takes a lot of times you’re paying these high powered firms, a lot of them to do that so again, we did 13 structures with that last bridge bond. The number for that that we actually accomplished was about $12.6 million dollars with only about, just under $5 million on it coming out of the county. So, last year about this time, maybe a little bit earlier than that, I came and Mr. Palmer as we were in Covid we were a couple months into Covid said, Dan, this bridge bond is used up. I’ve got to ask for another one and he said, now is not the right time with not knowing what revenues were going to be, not knowing what expenditures, not knowing what Covid-19 is going to do to us he said, not right now. We’re a little beyond that. Another 5-year bridge bond, another $5 to $7 million I think those numbers came in about five maybe four but we’re going to be aggressive on that far right hands side where it says, improve management. These guys are helping me write Bridge New York grants all the time. We’re trying to think outside the box, we had some luck with Nature Conservancy with those so if we’re going to keep up with an overall 5.9 rating bridges or hopefully doing better than that then we’re going to have to be aggressive when it comes to funding.

SUBRA: Jim, is your $43.4 million in today’s dollars or is there factoring in for that ten years for inflation?

DOUGAN: Well, I think we’ve factored in. I can’t tell you that we factored in today’s cost of materials. I’m hoping that that is going to come back to normal a couple years from now but we’ve been doing some other things to try to keep costs down. Just recently, this board passed two resolutions for one bridge out on the Tracy Road where we bought the pre-cast concrete ourselves instead of having the general contractor do that to try to keep a markup, to try to actually start the project a little sooner so we hope to – I hope they’re projecting forward honestly Jeff but I never could have predicted Covid 19’s cost that’s for sure.

HUGHES: I just have a couple questions; the data is very impressive thank you. It’s really organized, thank you for the data base decisions. I just had a couple questions, why did the DOT stop or why does the DOT stop rating a bridge? For example, the bridge over the Boquet the DOT sign, it’s closed, the upper bridge that we saw the other day. Why did they stop rating those? Are they decommissioned by the county at some point and then they just say, we’re going through the county?

DOUGAN: I wouldn’t say they were decommissioned because that actually would be a formal process and probably I would let Mr. Manning talk about that a little bit more. I can’t find where those formal processes would be done with the three bridges that are closed right now, that one there and the two in Chesterfield. We’ve looked to see if there was a formal process. There is in NYS traffic law, there is a formal process so why they stopped, it’s been closed, it doesn’t have any vehicular traffic over it or fully closed would to have any pedestrian traffic so DOT to go back to Todd’s slide on the history got involved in inspections after that collapse so there was obviously a call for public safety so I think if the bridge is closed I’m making assumptions here I’m just using a logical argument, I’m assuming that because they don’t feel there’s a public safety issue anymore so that’s why they stop inspecting it. DOT doesn’t inspect it themselves they hire consulting firms to do all the inspecting for them so I’m assuming those inspections are on a per bridge cost so the more the DOT takes out of the list that they have to inspect every year the less DOT has to put out for dollars.

HUGHES: Are we allowed to open a county bridge that’s not rated by the DOT? Again, I think about the Boquet River.

DOUGAN: I think we would have to present to the DOT that before we did so. The authority to reopen tends to be with the Highway Superintendent but definitely for caution for something that has been closed for a period of time I would like DOT to come and take a look at it before we decide.

HUGHES: Just my last statement, you have a very orderly line as you presented here of all the bridges as they go through. Is it a correct statement to say it’s exceptional – a bridge you can budget if we wanted to re-open the Boquet, if we wanted to the Keeseville Bridge is there a budget line somewhere which could challenge the funding stream and your funding mechanism because you are doing that simpler math over time?

DOUGAN: Yes, to me again the first responsibilities is I think my first responsibility is public safety of things that are open right now so moving a different one in that would mean something moves down the list. Not to say, we haven’t had other ones that have had to come in Tahawus Road, out in Newcomb that was red flagged after a diver went in and looked at it. We knew it was failing. We knew it was deteriorating, it was run down but it only served a mine on the other side but when DOT came in and brought an actually diver in and able to stick that measuring tape like Todd pointed out in the one photo, horizontally it went under that structure ten feet so all of a sudden that had to be closed. There was really no other detours, that had to be done. If there’s detours, if there is a reasonable detour with things then those things kind of get closed and put on hold so I would say, adding abridge that’s closed and isn’t used for traffic right now into the mix it does push other things back without a doubt.

HUGHES: Would you identify potentiality of traffic as a factor for inserting a bridge into the que?

DOUGAN: You could.

HUGHES: Because the Etown bridge may not have a ton of AADT but the Keeseville bridge potentially could.

DOUGAN: The next question you should ask yourself too and I think is important here is depreciating assets and the numbers are going up. In those 13 bridges we added one new one. One of the ones that is being constructed in 2021 is a new one. We have identified the others that probably easily within this next 10-year plan so Essex County demographics you guys know better than I do, we are the second largest by area county in the State, second lowest population density DOT regulations are now taking a lot of culverts and turning them into bridges. Bridges are a lot harder to maintain than culverts right, your highways crews maintain culverts all the time they get more and more and more our population isn’t growing right, it’s moving in the other direction. You really should ask yourself, are all of these necessary?

GIORDANO: Todd and Jim you did a very nice job on this. When I look at this and Todd, the more conversations I had with the Cornell road program I see some similarities so to me it’s like 15,000-foot level but not the 30,000-foot level because you’re looking at the last twenty years. So you could you compare for the purposes of this board because you are talking about 135 bridges but adding potentially eight more plus these other conversions of culverts, two bridges and I don’t know what the history is. I’m sure Todd you’ve tried to research back on how they tried to scored things in the past and I don’t know how easy it is to get that information but certainly you had five twenty years ago, you’re moving toward six now but there’s one great slide I know the research shows when you did the Cornell roads presentation for the whole board, it basically shows just what Jim had talked about depreciating assets so for every dollar you put in for maintenance that saves you having to put $5.00 in for rebuilding your goal of replacing a bridge every 50 years is probably a nominal, average lifespan but if you can maintain that bridge it means it might last 35 years without having to put additional money in so for the purposes of this board, the purposes of what Dan and prior boards have done to try to bring us up to a safe level for maintenance of our bridges can you speak to where you think this will go in the future because certainly there’s probably some push down to get that number high enough but then hopefully later on you can relax it a bit because maintenance is going to take over and your costs on annual basis is going to diminish.

DOUGAN: Gary has listed here some of these that are maintenance projects and that are included in that process and that is the goal and I know I said, our quick math is 50 years the design standard is actually 75 but we’re coming out of a situation where that 75 was not the design standard and if you really look at detail, if we were to really look at the age of some of these bridges and some are really deteriorating and I’m not trying to pick on anybody because you all have balanced budgets and everything else, but if you look at the bridges that were built in the 80’s were some of the worse ones that we had. So, we’ve got to dig out a little bit of that hole as well but you’re right, the goal is to maintain. Why did we apply for a vac truck grant from DEC? Anybody know? No?

SCOZZAFAVA: So Moriah could borrow it. (laughter)

DOUGAN: You already got one. No, we actually applied for a vac truck for a better system for our bridges. We applied it because we do not have the best bridge washing system and so we applied for this. We can actually go out we can vacuum, we can wash it off, we can actually suck that stuff up before it goes right back in the river why, as part of the bridge washing program. If we get that salt and we get that sand off the painted steel and some of those things event the concrete, and seal it more often it lasts a lot longer. That’s not built into here, that’s all stuff we’re trying to do within our budget and within CHIPS funds but we understand the idea of maintenance. I have really good staff which is why I wanted them to present and I wanted you guys to see that.

HODGSON: Just to answer that question and Jim eluded to it so back in the 1990’s a lot of those bridges we are revisiting right now and that’s not a very long life when you consider it to be an expenditure so that made us concerned so between myself and Gary we have been rethinking some of the bridge replacements to get a longer life span. It was pointed out with the scour that is one of the number one failures of our bridges up here experience. We have very steep terrain and a lot of valleys to cross particularly in Keene and that undercuts those footers so it shortens the life of the structure where the actual structure may carry vehicles for another couple of decades even the structure is no longer serviceable. Once your foundation is bad how do you fix that? Very difficult so Gary in particular has pushed toward adopting what DOT has been doing which is installing them on micro piles that way it gets below scour so that that foundation is something that stays intact despite hurricane and other activities. Even if we have to build a road back to the bridge, the bridge is still there and that’s a great way to extending the life to 75 years. We have actually some very old bridges. The Montcalm Bridge that bridge is an old, old bridge but the arch has been around for a long, long time and its foundation has been good over the years but yes, we’re definitely from the engineering department that’s actually our goal is expanding the assets so that they last a bit longer as part of our strategy.

DELORIA: Okay thank you Todd. Any other questions for Mr. Dougan on this bridge report? Okay, Jimmy did you have anything else? Clayton has provided a handout, an email and a few pictures from Matthew Pray. Clayton did you want to speak?

BARBER: I just wanted to get the handout for everybody to see this is another engineer that we actually reached out to. We’re hoping to hear form some more. As you can see we have not set up the conference call yet for them. Again, when I asked the Mill Hill Bridge to be restored as you heard on your list. Obviously we are looking at the historic part and how much it means. I know Matt sent out an email for each of you to come visit the bridge, to take a look at it. I personally would like to invite you all to come and look at it. I don’t want to sit here and compare bridges. I don’t want to go down that road unless I absolutely have to, to ask you. There’s a couple businesses, there’s a motorcycle business unfortunately it’s on the Clinton County side that’s right off of that bridge that’s actually going in there on the hopes of us possibly doing something with this bridge and there’s another business that has actually reached out Desotell. If anybody that has come and visited Desotell has a towing business there. We’ve had some somebody reached and I know she’s looking to sell the garage that’s there, there’s the possibility of that business. We all know the destruction of bridges you lose businesses in that area. Down by the Chasm bridge which is actually Clinton County’s responsibility. Tom brought up earlier, asked if Harold’s, the bar right there unfortunately that closed two years now. Ken came and visited last week at his request and I hope you all come and see the bridge. Thank you.

DELORIA: And Clayton, you will be bringing us updates on this?

BARBER: Absolutely. As I said, we are still thinking out of the box we’re hoping we get historical grants Matt has been working very hard. My next letter is going to go to Governor Cuomo.

DELORIA: I would absolutely encourage you to get with Mr. Dougan before a whole lot of effort is put into this and let them advice from his engineering office and any question you may have.

BARBER: Yes, I have given him a copy of this.

MONTY: Clayton I see in a couple emails and it’s mentioned here again, Matt keeps saying, funding is available, funding is available where? He’s not saying where it is available. It’s easy to say funding is available.

BARBER: No, what he is actually looking is the funding that you see every day on T.V. you know for infrastructure I know, not necessarily like he said, he’s asking for the county’s support. He’s not one who is the specialty on grants and stuff like that. That’s what we’re all asking. I’m not an expert on grants. We’re asking for the county’s help to fund this.

GILLILLAND: Clayton your office is the champion here for the project in Essex County, who is the champion in Clinton County? I’ve had discussions with Mark Henry and his board up there and he’s not being warm and fuzzy that Clinton is going to fund for this.

BARBER: In that interview because Mark Henry actually called saying Sandy Senecal from the Town of Ausable and asked her if she thought the Town of Ausable and the Town of Chesterfield would like to take over the bridge. Obviously, just the cost of that to put on the tax payers I can’t imagine the insurance for it, you have to put insurance on all these bridges. I have no idea what the cost would be. I just can’t fathom what the cost would be.

DELORIA: Okay is there anything further?

BARBER: Rob Timmons is in full support, Carl Wykes came down they walked the bridges at one time they both, I mean, from what I gather from them they are in support. Clinton County is looking at the pedestrian bridge so called, the swinging bridge, pedestrian bridge they’ve committed to having somebody come in and look at that bridge and see what it would cost to build. I mean, five or six more years if they don’t do something that bridge will be closed. Like I said, for safety reasons and this is just a commitment to show that this bridge can be restored and brought up to time capacity for emergency services not fire trucks but ambulances. Anything else?

DELORIA: Thank you Mr. Barber. Okay if there is nothing more to come before DPW, we stand adjourned.

As there was no further discussion to come before this DPW meeting it was adjourned at 10:25 a.m.