ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 4, 1996 TAG: 9612040069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
The Botetourt County Board of Supervisors is trying to enlist the help of Virginia's members of the U.S. Senate and the Federal Highway Administration to save Eagle Rock's doomed bridge.
County Administrator Gerald Burgess last week sent Sens. John Warner and Charles Robb copies of a resolution approved unanimously by the supervisors last month reiterating their support for keeping the bridge. Copies also were sent to state legislators representing Botetourt and key members of the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The resolution urges Warner and Robb and the Federal Highway Administration to "take all steps necessary to provide for the continuation of this vital bridge structure."
Eagle Rock residents, led by Dee Dee Bruce, have been fighting to save the deteriorating 1933 bridge ever since its weight limit was reduced to 10 tons in 1988. The bridge links the town with U.S. 220, which runs along the opposite side of the James River.
VDOT finally appropriated money to study whether the bridge could be saved last year, and learned it would cost $3 million to replace or rehabilitate it. Considering it serves a community of about 300, the cost seemed too much.
The crushing blow came Aug. 6, when VDOT commissioner David Gehr wrote to Bruce that "I have decided to close and remove the Route 43Y bridge."
The limit already forces fire engines and loaded school buses to take a five-minute detour to and from the town.
If the bridge is destroyed, residents fear what little commerce remains in the village will dry up. Once a boomtown, Eagle Rock has been dying slowly since the lime works there closed in 1954.
VDOT's plan to remove the bridge, the resolution says, "imperils the very health, safety and welfare of Eagle Rock and the surrounding area of central Botetourt County."
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