Ray Nitschke Memorial Bridge was open for hours on Friday for annual spring cleaning. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — It’s not often we see any of the downtown Green Bay bridges open for hours at a time.
“A lot of people do spring cleaning around their homes, and that’s what we’re doing is spring cleaning, making sure that everything is ship-shape for shipping season,” explains Steve Grenier, head of Green Bay’ Public Works Department.
Grenier says the spring cleaning of the three downtown bridges, which temporarily diverted traffic for hours at a time, is a yearly necessity.
“During the winter you use anti-ice compounds, which are salt-based, to help keep ice from accumulating on the bridge,” he explains. “Those are corrosive. So we want to get that salt washed off and make sure the bridge is clean.”
If you drove by the bridges during the cleaning, you may not have seen anything that indicated they were getting cleaned besides blocked-off roads and work trucks.
That’s because all of that cleaning takes place under the road’s surface, inside the bridge where the gears and mechanics of the bridge are.
Grenier says down there, something as small as road salt build-up can have a big impact.
“There are steel counterweights on that bridge that help it lift and come back down at a slow rate. Those steel counterweights are just stacks of steel plates that are bolted in place,” Grenier explains. “If materials, if salt, are able to get in there, it generates what we call pack rust, and pack rust will start splitting the plates apart, break the bolts that hold the plates in place, and the plates will shift. . . they’ll bind, and the bridge won’t close properly.”
It’s more than just cleaning, too.
“The lift mechanisms, we’re doing some inspection, routine maintenance, lubrication of those lift mechanisms, looking at the deck, and making sure there’s no minor issues with the deck that need to be addressed and overall in good shape and ready for the season.”
While the city’s spring cleaning may disrupt your commute, Grenier says it’s worth it in the end.
“We hope that people understand that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound to cure.”
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