Anyone driving along Douglas Highway this summer has likely noticed heavy equipment by the side of the road at Lawson Creek Bridge.
It’s part of stage three of the Alaska Department of Transportation’s Douglas Highway project. Most of the project has involved sidewalk improvements and road resurfacing up to this point, but what’s happening at Lawson Creek is different.
DOT spokesman Sam Dapcevich said the bridge is undergoing a process called metalization.
“They spray this liquid on there, but it’s not a paint,” he said. “It actually causes a chemical reaction that coats the steel of the bridge in a zinc-like coating, and it greatly extends the life of the bridge steel.”
Lawson Creek Bridge was originally built in 1935 and widened in the mid-70s.
Dapcevich said the bridge has eight steel beams underneath it that are each 300 feet long. The work crew is doing 100-foot increments at a time, blasting away the old paint and then coating the beams with zinc.
“Basically, it’s like a sacrificial layer. It will corrode instead of the bridge corroding,” Dapcevich said.
The work shouldn’t affect traffic on the highway at all, but Dapcevich said they’ve gotten some complaints about noise when work runs late. The crew is permitted to work as late as 10 p.m., but he said they’re trying to keep it to daytime hours. They’ve also moved a generator that caused some noise complaints.
The work is expected to last until the end of September.
Details about the project can be found at douglashwy.com.
Correction: This story previously misstated the number of steel beams beneath Lawson Creek Bridge.