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Bridge Work Is for the Birds
Crew Relocates Osprey
Nests On Waldo-Hancock Span
By John Hubbard
BUCKSPORT—Maine
Department of Transportation workers prepared Tuesday for a
two-year renovation project on the Waldo-Hancock
Bridge.
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Workers high atop one of two Waldo-Hancock
Bridge towers, above, prepare to remove an osprey nest,
left. |
Atop one of two
towers, workers removed several osprey nests, built by predator
birds that seek perches high above the world where they hunt.
Knowing the
osprey’s reputation, DOT officials decided that leaving the nests
in place during a two-year stint of work on the bridge would be
risky both to those working on the steel and to the birds that
might be threatened by the unusual presence.
If the birds feel
threatened, said project manager Scott Rollins of the MDOT office
in Winthrop, they will dive-bomb workers on the bridge.
Rollins said that
the nests would be relocated to a nearby campground down a slope
toward the Penobscot River. Crews will place the nests on
platforms on 40-foot poles to give the birds the sense of height
they seek for their nesting sites.
Meanwhile,
workers atop the two towers busied themselves drilling holes and
mounting “daddy-longlegs” contraptions that prevent birds from
landing on the towers and building more nests. Two members of the
crew, bundled against the wind, directed traffic. Moving off the
bridge, the temperature seemed to rise. After the men came down
from one tower, they took a long break at a local restaurant to
warm up before tackling the second tower.
Rollins said that
a similar project had been done in Arrowsic, and the birds quickly
located their old nests after returning to Maine in the spring. So
far, that project has worked fine and has paved the way, so to
speak, for the nest removal from the suspension bridge over the Penobscot River.
Work will begin
on the bridge in June. On Tuesday, representatives of Piasecki
Steel Construction Co. of Castleton, N.Y., contractor for the
bridge work, climbed the long cables that arc upward from the
roadbed to the upper towers. The workers were surveying the steel
to determine what must be done.
The main cables
will be unsheathed, examined and repaired where necessary, and
secondary, vertical cables that connect the bridge and main cable
will be replaced. More steel work and painting will be done, and
toward the end of the project, the roadbed will be renovated,
also.
MDOT officials
estimated the project would be completed in 2006, although
Piasecki representatives said the cable and steel work would
require only two years.
After the bridge
work is done, Rollins said, the nesting deterrents will be removed
and birds will be allowed to build nests on the bridge again. |
