With underwater work on the Coos Bay railroad bridge complete and repairs soon to begin on the swing span, the Oregon International Port of Coos Bay's board of commissioners has agreed to restore steelwork originally dropped from the project to reduce costs.

During a nearly two-hour meeting at the Coos Bay city hall Thursday night, the port commission voted 3-0-1 to approve change orders to the bridge repair plan, including $605,687 to replace additional steel crossmembers on Span No. 8, the movable section.

Other change orders included in the motion authorized funds to cover the costs of pier work, a temporary repair to a bridge walkway and worker overtime. The funds will be drawn from the additional $983,790 commissioners released for the program in November.

Commissioners Jerry Hampel, Caddy McKeown and Dan Smith approved the change orders while Dave Kronsteiner abstained from the discussion, citing his presidency of West Coast Contractors, the Coos Bay firm that repaired and strengthened the bridge's piling. (Commissioner Brady Scott was in China, where he was accompanying Martin Callery, the port's marketing director, on a trade mission for the state of Oregon.)

Before the vote, Loren Wagnild, project manager of Jacobs Civil Inc., the Lake Oswego engineering firm that designed the repair plan, narrated a presentation to show commissioners the need to repair more parts of the swing span than originally budgeted. A set of 35 photographs taken in January displayed laterals and lacing bars so rust-eaten that some had literally crumbled to dust, the extent of the deterioration producing groans from some of the 17 people in the audience.

"You can see what deferred maintenance does to a bridge," Wagnild said drily as a photo appeared on-screen of an overhead bridge beam, long since beaten paintless by rainstorms and salt air, stamped with the year construction began: "1914."

Wagnild asked the port commission to allow the replacement of 36 more truss bars, 21 on the west side and 15 on the east, in addition to the 13 elements already slated to be replaced on Span No. 8. More lateral bars also will be replaced on eight of the 12 spans over the Coos Bay water way.

About $90,945 would be set aside for contingencies, he added.

The new steelwork was made possible after the Oregon Department of Transportation allowed the port to use $983,790 it had left unassigned after Osmose Engineering of Madison, Wisc. won the above-water construction contract with a $4.4 million bid. Wagnild called on commissioners to use that windfall to restore parts of the project the port dropped when its budget was scaled back in July 2003 from $6.4 million, after earlier bids each came in at more than $2 million over the limit.

Though Wagnild cautioned the additional steelwork could delay completion of the swing-span repair beyond the port's mid-October target date and into the early weeks of the rainy season, port General Manager Mike Gaul called that a minimal concern for above-water construction, which he described as less sensitive to poor weather than underwater work.

"The weather won't affect this piece of the project," he said after the meeting. "You'll see them working in the rain. In a couple of weeks we'll know whether they need extra time."

Later Thursday, the port commission unanimously agreed to pledge up to $100,000 to service debt that may be incurred during the possible construction of sewer line under the Coos Bay waterway to the North Spit.

The port would pay less than that sum if it can garner contributions from the cities of Coos Bay and North Bend, Charleston Sanitary District and other Bay Area agencies, Gaul told commissioners, adding his goal is to fund the sewer line through "a regional approach with all (parties) paying their fair share."

Smith called the timing of the pledge appropriate because of the chance to install the sewer pipe in the same right of way as the NW Natural gas pipeline, which Gaul said eliminates excavation expenses for the port and should cut the project cost from at least $4 million to about $1 million.

"Everybody wins," Smith said, "and this is the time to do it."

In other business: the port commission:

€ appointed Jim Simpson and Louis Liberte to the Budget Committee, which will convene in May;

€ authorized $62,712 for engineering studies for a possible extension of the North Spit railroad spur; and

€ allowed the South Coast Development Council to end its lease at the Business Development Center in North Bend. The decision frees the SCDC, which is in the second year of its lease, to move its office to the Hub Building in Coos Bay, where the port also keeps its headquarters.