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Caneadea bridge work to begin; A prominent site in county's history
By KATHRYN ROSS/Daily Reporter
CANEADEA -- After nearly a decade of quibbling, work to restore the Caneadea Bridge will get underway this fall.
The Caneadea bridge first came to prominence across the county and state in 1990 when it was the site of a last ditch effort to stop the state from placing a nuclear waste dump in Allegany County. On a cool April day, as the Genesee River flowed beneath several elderly citizens of the county chained themselves to the bridge while sitting underneath a giant American flag and a banner that read Grandparents for the Future which had been hung from the iron girders.*
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| Ross continued.
Shortly after that the bridge was declared by the county to be unsafe. The weight bearing allowance was limited. In 1993 it was officially closed, cutting off east side residents of the town from easy access to services such as mail, groceries, government, fire and ambulance. In 1999 the county abandoned the bridge.
That's when a couple of women, Miriam Morton and Maxine Schembri went to work to save the bridge and reestablish essential access. They called on experts who recognized the historical importance of the "one of just two Parker Camelback bridges left in the United States."
Noting that it was constructed in 1903, it was placed on the New York State and National Registries of Historic Places.
At the same time the bridge was being abandoned, Allegany County Public Works Director David Roeske wrote a grant proposal to asking for $529,280 in state Transportation Enhancement grant funding to repair the bridge.
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| Ross continued.
In the late summer of 2002 word was received that the grant would be awarded. The grant will pay for 80 percent of the cost to open the bridge and county public works crews will do the work to cover the other 20 percent Roeske said at the time.
For the last 10 years, the Save the Caneadea Bridge Committee has been raising funds through its Indian Summer Festival to help with those costs.
At the behest of the committee state Assemblyman Daniel Burling, R-Corfu, recently inquired as to the progress of the project and learned from Roeske that, "the project is progressing; the engineering design and bid documents are finished. We will be opening bids for the abutment work on October 3, 2005 with this phase of the project to be completed in early December.*
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| Ross continued.
"The county will then begin the steel work. This phase will take some time as other projects will be done simultaneously," Roeske continued in his letter. "We must have the project completed by December of 2006, but are expecting a completion date of Fall 2006."
Jean Nevinger, chairman of the 2005 Indian Summer Festival thinks that's just great.
"Miriam and Maxine had such enthusiasm to get this all started," she said. "When the bridge is reopened it will save a lot of time for residents and make things like mail delivery much easier."
She also expects there will be a celebration planned for when the bridge is reopened. Nevinger also approved of a fledgling plan to place some sort of memorial near the bridge to commemorate the actions of the Grandparents for the Future and the citizens who kept a nuclear waste dump from the hills of Caneadea and other parts of the county.
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| This is a 6 megabyte file of the bridge it will take some time to download this file, especially if you do not have a fast computer and connection.
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| One of just two Parker Camelback bridges left in the United States."
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| So delicate.*
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Album: Allegany County, NY(angelica14709.com) 
1 
