LOCK HAVEN - The Bald Eagle Valley Rail Trail was a big topic of discussion at the Clinton County Commissioner's work session Monday morning.
County Planning Director Katie de Silva updated the commissioners on the bridge conversion project as part of the trail's construction.
The iron bridge, which crosses the Susquehanna River into Pine Creek Township, is phase 5 of the six phase project which will see the trail link up with Lycoming County's Pine Creek Rail Trail in Jersey Shore.
The bridge must be converted from railroad use to bike/pedestrian traffic, de Silva said.
According to de Silva, PennDOT, which is largely funding the conversion through a TAP (Transportation Alternatives Program) Grant, announced Glenn O. Hawbaker as the winning bid for the project at a cost of $2,862,862.
PennDOT drew up the contract for Hawbaker, which is being reviewed by county Solicitor Larry Coploff, de Silva said.
The contract is expected to be brought to the commissioners during their voting session this Thursday.
So far the county will be using PennDOT's $2,505,992 for the project as well as $250,000 from a Community Partnerships Grant via DCNR and $100,000 from the county's Act 13 Bridge Fund if necessary, de Silva said.
"The great thing about having Hawbaker as the winner is that their capacity is enormous," she said. "They have everything at their fingertips including materials and stone."
de Silva believes the initial cost of the project will be reduced.
"They have their own stable of engineers and they have proposed a value added engineering to this contract that could save a tidy amount of money," she continued. "When the construction contractor does that - PennDOT has to approve the alternate design they come up with - the construction contractor gets to keep 50 percent of the reduction in cost and the project owner gets to keep the other half."
de Silva explained that although the county is the project owner, in the end PennDOT would see the savings due to a decreased cost in payment out of the grant.
"This bodes really well for the cost of the project," she said.
Hawbaker is expected to go into winter shutdown from January to March and will do their project planning during that time frame.
"By the end of that period we should know what the reduction of cost is and construction will commence in March ... the very end of March," she said. "It should be completed by August if all goes well."
de Silva, who has been gathering funding and working on the project since 2018, spoke about the amount of work that has gone into the conversion project.
"I was just thinking how crazy it is to work on such a large project with so many moving parts and so many players. It's just a huge team effort when you do work with PennDOT and they consider this a small project ... which is also staggering to me," she said.
Commissioner Miles Kessinger, who has been involved in the project, echoed de Silva's statements.
"It is all ready to go, so on Thursday the approval of this contract will move a large portion of the trail - as Katie said, a small project for PennDOT -but a very large project for the county," Kessinger said.
All three commissioners attended the work session held via livestream on the county's Facebook page.
The commissioners will meet at 10 a.m. Thursday via livestream for their voting session.
