WORK ON CHESTER BRIDGE SET; RENOVATION OF SPAN TO COST $3.5 MILLION

CHESTER, Ill. -- A yearlong effort to repaint and renovate the Chester, Ill., bridge over the Mississippi River is expected to begin in January, a Missouri Highway and Transportation Department spokesman said Wednesday.

While the work is in progress traffic over the two-lane bridge will be reduced to a single lane. Temporary traffic signals will regulate the movement of traffic across the bridge.

Bids on the project will be opened Oct. 30 in Jefferson City. If they are within the engineer's estimate, a contract will be awarded by the Highway Commission at its monthly meeting in early November.

Tom Stehn, design engineer with the department's District 10 office in Sikeston, said: "We expect the entire project will take about one year to complete. Of course, weather will be a factor as far as the actual amount of time it takes to complete the work."

The $3.5 million project will include sandblasting of the bridge's 1,651-foot steel superstructure to remove all of the old lead-based paint and application of a primer and new coat of paint.

Besides the new paint job, Stehn said the old toll house on the Illinois side of the river will be removed to improve the eastern approach to the bridge.

"We'll also do some deck and joint work on the steel superstructure, replace all of the electrical conduits and channel navigation marker lights, remove all of the existing street lights on the bridge, and put a quarter-inch polymer seal coating on top of the concrete bridge deck, which should eliminate a lot of deck maintenance problems," Stehn said.

The painting and renovation work was scheduled to start in early 1990, but was delayed until now because the U.S. Environmental Protection Administration and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources issued regulations requiring the capture of all the toxic lead-based paint chips sandblasted from the steel superstructure.

Stehn said the state will allow the contractor to select the best method for removing and catching the old lead-based paint. "We feel we can get the most economical bid if we leave it up to the contractor," he said.

"All we require is that the contractor conform to DNR and EPA environmental regulations. The contractor can use the vacuum suction method or install a canvas catch basin underneath each section of bridge being sandblasted."

Stehn said all of the used sand-and-lead-based paint chips will be taken to a lead smelter at Doe Run, where the lead will be recycled. "Because we are recycling the sand and old paint, it is considered a commodity and not a toxic substance under DNR rules, so it can be disposed of in that manner," he explained.

After applying a coat of inorganic zinc-based primer paint, the bridge superstructure will be spray-painted with an aluminum-colored finish paint with a life expectancy of about 20-25 years, Stehn said.

All of the work will be done under the supervision of the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department. Funding for the project is provided by Missouri and Illinois and the city of Chester. Under an agreement signed by the three governmental agencies, the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department is responsible for the actual bridge maintenance.

The Chester bridge was completed in August 1942, then closed July 29, 1944, after the main span of the bridge was destroyed by a tornado. The reconstructed bridge was reopened to traffic in September 1946. It was operated by the city of Chester as a toll bridge until Jan. 1, 1989, when Missouri and Illinois agreed to take over operation and maintenance of the span.