N.B. Official Defends Bridge Project
By Diana Graettinger, Bangor Daily News, Maine
Jun. 16–EASTPORT — The new four-lane road that soon will connect the New Brunswick cities of Saint John and St. Stephen is nearly complete.
Now it’s a matter of building a new $112 million bridge that will connect Canada with Maine — unless a U.S. federal court judge puts the brakes on.
On Friday, opponents of the Calais bridge asked a federal judge to grant a preliminary injunction to stop the project until additional environmental reviews can be conducted. A decision is pending.
But Thursday night, Susi Derrah, a policy analyst with the New Brunswick Department of Transportation, talked about the new bridge and about other highway projects in the province. She was the guest speaker at the Maine Better Transportation Association meeting held at the Eastport Chowder House. Guests dined on lobster and blueberry pie.
Derrah began with some comparisons of the two countries.
New Brunswick’s population is around 750,000, while Maine’s population sits at around 1.2 million. The unemployment rate in New Brunswick is 8.8 percent, while it’s only about half that in Maine — at 4.6 percent.
Among New Brunswick’s road priorities is the twinning of Route 1 — the road that leads to Calais and the new bridge. New Brunswick started years ahead of Maine, and except for two sections the road is nearly completed.
The province plans to spend $414 million over the next 10 years to fix and build roads throughout the province, she said.
Why invest so much in infrastructure?
“A statistics Canada study between 1961 and 2000 [indicates that] the return from a $1 investment in public infrastructure [roads, transit, water, wastewater treatment] generated 17 cents of cost savings per year,” she said.
A well-constructed road, she added, allows a truck driver to avoid back roads and transport goods to market in less time.
Derrah also talked about the problems of weight restrictions in Maine. That drew applause from the more than 60 industry people who attended the meeting. Canada would like to see weight limits in Maine increased from 80,000 pounds to 100,000 pounds.
“Because what happens is the heavy trucks go on your secondary roads, and they’re not designed to take that kind of weight,” she said. “And … in terms of environmental effects, you have five trucks hauling what four trucks should be able to haul.” She said New Brunswick has raised the issue with Maine’s governor on several occasions.
Derrah then talked about the new bridge. Right now the Department of Transportation is in the process of reconstructing Route 1 on the Maine side to accommodate the new bridge. The state agency also has begun construction of the $120 million international bridge near Calais’ Industrial Park.
But there is an obstacle.
On Friday, a group called the Friends of Magurrewock was in federal court in Bangor trying to stop the project, saying it would have a negative environmental impact on the nearby Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge.
They would rather see the bridge built in Baileyville.
In May, Lynne Williams, the Bar Harbor attorney for the Friends of Magurrewock, filed the paperwork requesting the preliminary injunction on behalf of the Baileyville-based nonprofit corporation after learning the state was about to begin road work in the refuge. The group is worried that a four-lane road would adversely affect the refuge. The DOT has said it has no plans to build a four-lane road through that area.
In April, the group filed its original lawsuit in federal court.
As proposed, the third bridge is expected to be completed in 2008.
Traffic from the new bridge would pass through the refuge on Route 1 on its way to Route 9.
Traffic already passes through the refuge from the city’s other two bridges — the downtown Ferry Point Bridge and the Milltown Bridge near the city’s industrial park.
Asked after the meeting about the court action by the Friends group, Derrah said her government had confidence that everything had been handled appropriately.
“We can only rely on our counterparts with Maine DOT. From our understanding all of the necessary permits and approvals were received from the [U.S.] Army Corps of Engineers, and all the environmental approvals and all of the processes were followed that had to be followed; the court challenge is certainly out of our hands,” she said.
But if the Friends are successful at shutting the project down, she said, the province would have to look at its options. Essentially, the province would have a four-lane bypass around St. Stephen that would end at the St. Croix River.
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