Troublesome Blanchard culvert may be replaced with bridge

Blackstone Brook includes prime rearing
area for salmon and trout

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — Representatives from the Atlantic Salmon Federation and Wright-Pierce Engineering addressed the Piscataquis County Commissioners’ meeting last week about an ongoing problem with undersized culverts on Church Road in Blanchard Township.

    As a result, Blackstone Stream often overflows its banks, washing part of the road away and impeding an important fish passageway.
    The solution could be expensive; however, with a combination of grants and other funding sources, it won’t cost Piscataquis County taxpayers anything.
    Andy Goode from the federation and Joe McLean of Wright-Pierce traced the origin of the problem back to the installation of a culvert in 2007 that appeared to be too small to begin with. “About 60 percent of the culverts on the Piscataquis River are subject to some kind of blockage,” Goode said. “Typically, the problem is a 2-foot culvert over a 4-foot stream.”
    The Church Road culvert is only 12-feet wide while the stream is about 30-feet wide, Goode explained. “Ideally, we want to have a structure that’s 1.2 times stream width. So that would be about 42 feet.”
    A PowerPoint presentation included numerous photos of the area including topographic maps, the network of cold water brooks feeding into Blackstone Stream and the location of all the culverts on Church Road.
    In addition to the 12-foot wide box culvert, there are six smaller ones including twin 48-inch diameter round passages where the stream “doubles back” into a smaller channel. “Even with all these culverts, the road still over-tops — especially in the spring,” McLean said.
    The recommended solution is to replace the 12-foot box culvert with a prefabricated steel bridge and move the box culvert to the area where the twin 48-inch pipes are now located.
    McLean explained that the bridge would not alter the height of the roadway and the decking would be gravel — the same as the road surface.
    “This structure will prevent over-topping for at least 25 years,” McLean said. “We suspect that it has the potential to last 50 years. Surely, it’s a vast improvement over what we have there now.”
    Interim County Manager Tom Lizotte noted that the plans were very similar to a Maine DOT study of the area conducted in 2013. “It certainly increases my comfort zone,” Lizotte said. “You have two sets of experts both coming up with the same recommendation.”
    Partners in the project, in addition to the Atlantic Salmon Federation, include the Maine Department of Marine Resources, Maine DOT, Maine IF&W and the Army Corps of Engineers.
    Goode said that the next step would be to finalize the design of the bridge and get the necessary permits next year with tentative construction starting in 2016. “This project isn’t cheap,” he said. “Just the bridge itself is about $165,000. But given the priority of it, I think it will be relatively easy to find the funds.”
    The commissioners only asked a few questions about the concept and voted unanimously to support it. “It’s been an ongoing problem,” said Commissioner Eric Ward, “so we need to get it right this time.”