By LOHR McKINSTRY
CROWN POINT — The detonation of the Champlain Bridge is still on for Monday.
The demolition was postponed from last Wednesday to give contractor Advanced Explosives Demolition of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, more time to attach the 500 shaped charges that will be needed to take down the 2,184-foot steel span.
Advanced Explosives is getting $188,000 to implode the bridge into the lake, where a crane will pick it up and deposit sections onto barges for removal.
Those working on the bridge got a scare earlier this week when a 22-year-old worker fell into the lake from a barge underneath.
He was pulled from the water around 10 a.m. Wednesday and treated by Crown Point Rescue Squad and Lamoille Ambulance. The unidentified worker was taken to Moses-Ludington Hospital in Ticonderoga, where he was treated for hypothermia and released.
It’s the severe cold weather that forced them to move the bridge detonation to Monday, said Department of Transportation spokeswoman Deborah Sturm Rausch.
“Because of the cold, people can only work on the bridge for a certain period of time; then they have to come in and warm up.”
DOT Regional Engineer John Grady explained that the bridge will be dropped into the lake by explosive charges placed all over it.
“(Each charge is) a tube made out of copper. It’s loaded with a RDX explosive. When detonated, it cuts through the metal and severs it,” Grady said.
RDX, short for Royal Demolition eXplosive, is an explosive nitroamine used in military and industrial applications.
“It cuts it very easily,” Grady said. “It’s two million pounds of force.”
He said because of the size of the bridge, Advanced Explosives is using four times the normal amount of plastic explosives.
“We’ll have 500 linear shaped charges on the bridge. That’s 800 pounds of explosives.”
The bridge was closed Oct. 16 and later deemed irreparable after underwater inspections showed severe cracks and erosion of its concrete pillars. Construction of a new bridge is planned to start in the spring.
The Village Pier in Port Henry is the main public viewing area for the bridge demolition. The beach at the Bulwagga Bay Town Campground off Route 9N/22 in Port Henry is the secondary site. In Vermont, Route 125 south of the bridge has been designated as the public viewing area.
DOT officials say anyone on the frozen lake around the bridge will be in serious danger of breaking through the ice because the shock wave created by the remains of the bridge falling onto the ice and into the lake may cause even thick sections of ice miles away to break up.
Warning sirens will sound 10 minutes, five minutes and one minute before the demolition occurs.
State Environmental Conservation officers and forest rangers, the U.S. Coast Guard, and State Police and the Essex County Sheriff’s Department will be focusing on keeping people out of the safety zone around the bridge.
The Ticonderoga Ferry reopened this week after closure for a couple days due to icing.
Jeff Provost of Dock Doctor of Vermont said their air-bubbler system is working at keeping the ferry’s channel open between Ticonderoga and Shoreham, Vt.
“We worked 36 hours straight. We made the thing work. It’s working flawlessly,” Provost said.
The independent Ticonderoga Ferry usually shuts down at the end of October but operators agreed to keep it open as long as possible because of the bridge closure.
Ice in the channel was blown in by high winds, Provost said.
“Once we cleaned the channel everything was 100 percent. Now the bubblers are doing their job.”
He said the Dock Doctor contract runs until Dec. 31 but can be extended if necessary.
A 24-hour ferry will run next to the old bridge once its docks are finished in January.
E-mail Lohr McKinstry at:
lmckinstry@pressrepublican.com
On the Web:
Live Video of Bridge Demolition (Monday)
https://www.nysdot.gov/lakechamplainbridge
