Construction and concerns in Newton Township
NEWTON TOWNSHIP, LACKAWANNA COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — Eight months after a terrible storm led to a bad crash at a Lackawanna bridge, there’s now a new span proposal for the Newton Township Bridge.
Four people crashed into the raised portion of the bridge in September that was damaged by the heavy rain.
Those four were treated for severe injuries and the bridge was temporarily repaired.
The beginning of those new bridge plans started Monday with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) showing off the future bridge plan with their community.
28/22 News Reporter Emily Allegrucci was at that meeting held in Newton Township just minutes from where the bridge collapsed in September.
PennDOT has plans to put a safe, new bridge in place, but one local still has a major concern.
“It was a very severe storm. We had over 5 inches of rain here in about a two-hour period,” said Eckel Farms Owner Keith Eckel.
That storm on September 9 is what led to the collapse of the bridge on Falls Road in Newton Township, severely injuring four people.
“It was nighttime. There’d be no way that you had a clue that the bridge was gone when they were coming back home,” Eckel said.
Although the PennDOT built a temporary fix to the bridge in less than two weeks, they still need to make a new and permanent structure.
That is exactly what was discussed at a meeting in Newton Township on Monday as PennDOT shared with the community their plans to rebuild the bridge.
And with bridge construction comes detours, but PennDOT officials say it will be worth the aggravation.
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“The reaction has been positive that the bridge is going to be permanently replaced. Nobody usually likes to use a detour, but I think in this case it’s the best way to construct this bridge,” said PennDOT District Liason Manager Chris Tomaszewski.
But traffic isn’t Eckel’s biggest worry.
“The streams have filled up because dep does not allow them to be cleared out. If dep does not allow them to clear these cricks, we are going to experience the same thing again,” Eckel said.
Eckel says the Department of Environmental Protection won’t allow PennDOT to clear Falls Creek to protect the creek bed and the fish.
Something Eckel says will be a big problem when another major storm hits.
“When it comes to fish lives and people’s lives, in my book people come first,” Eckel explained.
PennDOT says regardless of what they can and can’t do with the creek below, they plan to build this bridge to last with a higher structure and wider opening for water to flow through.
“We design them for a hundred-year flood. There’s always the potential for a rainfall event that’s even higher than that, but hopefully, we won’t have the flooding that happened last September,” said Tomaszewski.
PennDOT says they are planning to start construction in the summer of 2025 and hope that the project will take about six months.
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