Letter: Take care of blue bridge maintenance before it’s too late

Has anyone looked lately at the steel structure on the blue bridge? It is badly in need of having the paint removed and re-painted. I can remember that sort of maintenance only being done once since 1965. There was a big fuss made by the fish-huggers. They claimed the sand used to strip the old paint harmed the fish.

If the upper structure (which we can see) looks like it does, what must the lower structure (which we cannot see) be like? If there is enough money to build a new bridge over the Yakima River, the big boys counting the pennies should be able to find the money to do preventative maintenance on the blue bridge. Maybe the money being spent on roundabouts could be shifted to maintenance on the blue bridge.

At some point, the lack of maintenance will cause the bridge to fail. Bare rusty metal will eventually fail.

This story was originally published December 27, 2017 at 12:42 PM with the headline "Letter: Take care of blue bridge maintenance before it’s too late."