$7.5 million pricetag and 2-3 years for new Covelo bridge, check out our exclusive inspection report-let us check on other county bridges for you

Inspector rated Green Bridge condition “intolerable” in 2024, but did not call for closure, 23 deck girders needed replacement

Covelo’s collapsed Green Bridge will cost roughly $7.5 million to replace and take at least two years to replace, according to Mendocino County Department of Transportation Director Howard N. Dashiell said in an interview Monday with Mendocinocoast.news.

The cause of the collapse is unknown at this point and being investigated by the CHP (from what we can tell).

The good news is the county is ready to put the job out to bid after more than a decade of preliminary work such as right-of-way acquisition.  The new bridge was planned on a new alignment to the road, preventing the sharp curve that the bridge was famous for.

“This project has been in process for quite some time (we have CEQA/NEPA and Right-of-Way acquisition phases complete) – we are at the “starting gate” for advertising for a contractor to start construction.  Nevertheless, it will take a minimum of two years to replace.  Maybe three or more. MCDoT plans to get the project started as soon as possible – start Phase I – remove old bridge, maybe build abutments and order the NEW bridge truss to be prefabricated (one year lead time), Dashiell said, in email correspondence with the news media.

“Phase II (year 2) install new bridge – two-year process at least.  In the meantime, there is a detour north and south.  The old bridge could not carry heavy emergency loads anyway, so little function is lost. The road will remain closed until new bridge is installed.” 

Mendocinocoast.news filed a California Public Act Request after the collapse. The bridge over Mill Creek failed about 6:40 p.m. on Friday. The inspection report described the bridge’s condition as “intolerable-needs replacement.” It was rated a 29 on a scale of 1-100.

What caused the bridge to collapse?  Did someone hit the bridge in the days or hours before it collapsed with a car on it?  Where was the car when the bridge fell? Could the car that was described as driving across the bridge have hit the bridge or driven over the side?

“At this time Mendocino County Department of Transportation (MCDoT) is not investigating the vehicle collision (assume CHP will do that) nor are we looking at the bridge failure cause – we simply want to move forward with our approved design which was “at the starting gate” for construction,” Dashiell said.

We asked those questions of the California HIghway Patrol and will add those details to this story when we get them.

The inspection report shows the bridge had a long list of problems, some of which sound serious to Mendocinocoast.news. We will be getting more information on this and other bridges for future stories. For now, we share the inspection report with you and encourage you to read the document and ask us questions we can press. If someone is an expert on the issues in the report, please let us know. What you can get from this article will be incomplete if you do not examine the inspection report that Mendocinocoast.news exclusively has to offer (at this moment at least).

How often are inspections done?

“The bridges are reviewed by county staff regularly, but the detailed report attached are done every two years… these Caltrans special trained engineers from Caltrans are funded by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to inspect local bridges,” Daschiell told Mendocinocoast.news.

(Note if a black document outline appears while trying to read the following, click on the book icon in the top left corner to make it go away. You can also download the pdf by clicking below the photo)

Dashiell did not feel the problems noted in the inspection report were the cause of the failure. Plus, crews worked on the problems following this 2024 inspection.

“The minor repairs recommended, which crews attended to were not germane to failure in my opinion,” said Dashiell.

Mendocino County maintains 157 structures… about 129 qualify for the Highway Bridge Program (HBP) federal funds.

“The subject bridge (Mill Creek at Hill Road Covelo) is one of those HBP bridges and as I said, we have been processing this bridge for replacement and fortunately are ready to proceed,” said Dashiell.

Are other county bridges entirely safe? We believe so. Mendocinocoast..news will be looking at more inspection reports, especially if readers recommend bridges that they would like to know more about!

If you know of a bridge that you feel needs to be investigated, please email us at frankhartzell@gmail.com. We are only going to be looking to learn about those 157 county bridges at this point and not all of them, LOL.

There are three kinds of bridges in our county, which has no Interstate Highway bridges, which are federal. 1. State bridges, maintained by Caltrans.  2. County bridges, inspected by Caltrans and maintained by the county. 3. Private bridges and other bridges not on public roads, such as the Pudding Creek Trestle in Fort Bragg, used only by pedestrians and bicycles and maintained by California State Parks. Logging companies maintain many bridges in the county. The inspection process varies for those and those are not included in this story.

Dashiell answered our questions about the cost of the new bridge, which is about $7.5 million.

“You asked about your estimate on funding… let me say that thus far all the design, environmental studies, right of way acquisition – everything needed for going to bid for contractor is about $1.5 million… then the guesstimate for construction is about $6 million… when we report bid results to the Board of Supervisors we will know for sure, ” Dashiell told Mendocinocoast.news.

“The proposed new bridge will have a length of 147 ft. and a clear width of 27 ft.  The new bridge was scheduled for phased construction within the next two to three years and the intention of MCDoT is to proceed with that project which is designed and certified under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) as soon as possible; but the likely timeframe is still two to three years,”  Dashiell said.

Couldn’t it be done faster with a prefabricated box girder bridge for example?

“There are other bridge construction methods which could be done in one season (e.g. standard concrete bridge)… But during the public process the public wanted “architectural features” to be similar to the old bridge, so we set up the bridge pictured.. problem is once you let a contract the “lead time” to prefabricate the new weathering steel pony truss is a year, therefore we will need to close the road longer,” Dashiell told the media.

‘If you are thinking why not change the design well just know reprocessing all the approvals might take five years… we are so close to proceeding with the approved design pictured below that we will be better off just staying on schedule… maybe accelerate the abutment construction this summer BUT… even that would require an early permitting, which is dubious.

 ‘Two years at best… three years likely… start changing design getting more right of way… five years or more… you can see below we need to build in the same footprint… we should just stay with our present project schedule and 100% federal funding… speeding it might mean a county cost share for emergency funds which might take longer, ” D said.

Dashiell said the county is in gear this week to get the fix going.

‘Just know MCDoT will be talking to state-federal agencies and looking for the best way forward as soon as we can.”

Our previous story which pinpoints the location.

The inspection report reveals that the bridge qualified for a special steel inspection, partly because it had Non-Redundant Steel Tension Members which can cause a bridge to collapse because a pressure point is hit and the bridge has no backup support and that one pressure could cause collapse. This is one of the many possible causes of this collapse. We don’t know if the National Transportation Safety Board investigates county bridges that collapse or not. We contacted them and will put that information in this story when it become available.

Mill Creek Bridge is  on Hill Road (County Maintained Road CR 327B), which is located approximately 3.25 miles southeast of the town of Covelo in northeastern unincorporated Mendocino County.  The specific location of the project is where Hill Road crosses Mill Creek, approximately 1.5 miles east of the intersection of Hill Road and Dobie Lane, at Mile Post 2.05.