Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black man to win best supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87
CLERMONT COUNTY

Dispute over Stonelick covered bridge collapse

Keith BieryGolick
kbierygolick@enquirer.com

STONELICK TWP. – A difference in height between two trusses and a lack of bracing led to the collapse of the Stonelick covered bridge, according to an engineer.

The 136-year-old bridge collapsed into Stonelick Creek in February while construction crews worked to fix it. The bridge was closed to traffic in May 2010 when a truck ignored its 3-ton limit and damaged the floor beams.

The Clermont County Engineer's Office requested John Smolen, principal engineer at Smolen Engineering, to assess the collapse.

There was no "lateral diagonal bracing ... at the time of the collapse," Smolen said in a March letter to the county engineer, obtained by The Community Press.

There also was a difference in elevation between the two trusses that "caused the structure to lean toward the upstream side," he said.

"This, coupled with the lack of lateral diagonal bracing, lead (sic) directly to the collapse of the bridge in the upstream direction," Smolen's letter said.

Tracy Ferguson, a corporate officer with Columbus-based Righter Co., which has the contract for the project, did not agree.

"We do not believe it was elevation or anything" about internal bracing that caused the collapse, Ferguson said.

"Basically all I can say is we don't know the cause and we're really working on figuring out what it is."

The difference in elevation between the trusses was 1 inch and not large enough to cause the collapse, Ferguson said.

Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration records show Righter Co. work sites have been inspected four times since 2004 and no violations were reported.

"This has never happened before so everybody is really taking their time trying to figure this out," Ferguson said.

Clermont County Engineer Pat Manger didn't blame the construction company for the collapse and said no legal action is planned.

The bridge is one of about 140 covered bridges left in Ohio and the only one in Clermont County.

Manger said it will still re-open this year and the collapse was "somewhat of a blessing."

"We didn't like that this happened, but the end result is we found some internal rot and ... damage to some wood members that we probably wouldn't have found otherwise," he said.

Existing rot on some of the wood "had nothing to do with the collapse," Manger said.

"We'll probably have a better product now than had this not happened."

The project was originally estimated to cost $850,000. The county received a $360,000 grant from the National Historic Covered Bridge Preservation Program, which required a $90,000 local match of taxpayers' money.

John Johnston contributed to this story.

Want to know more about what is happening in Clermont County? Follow Keith BieryGolick on Twitter: @KBieryGolick