MarkWest repairing historic bridge damaged by overweight truck
An energy company is paying to repair a bridge damaged last summer by an overweight vehicle, even though the company wasn’t responsible for the damage.
MarkWest is working with the state Department of Transportation to repair and upgrade the weight limit of the Day Road Bridge over Wheeling Creek that straddles the county line between Greene and Washington near the West Virginia border.
The historic, single-lane bridge on Day Road near Majorsville, W.Va., was damaged July 13 when a witness reported seeing a fully loaded tri-axle truck cross the span over Wheeling Creek. The bridge had a three-ton weight limit and was damaged by the truck, forcing its immediate closure.
PennDOT referred questions about the construction to MarkWest, which is handling the repairs.
Jamal Kheiry, a spokesperson for Marathon Petroleum Corp., said the company is working with PennDOT to expedite construction.
“By the end of March, we expect to be done,” Kheiry said, weather permitting. Construction started at the end of January.
Before the bridge closed, it was already off-limits to vehicles owned by MarkWest, which operates a natural gas processing plant just across the state line in West Virginia. Though it was not a MarkWest truck to blame for the damage, the company is upgrading the bridge from a three-ton weight limit to seven tons.
“We believe there is a benefit for the community and the company,” in repairing the bridge, Kheiry said. “Regarding funding, PennDOT is not paying anything – we are handling all funding for the repair and upgrading the bridge to seven tons of capacity.”
The company did not release details about how much it would cost to repair the bridge.
It was not known if the person driving the tri-axle truck was ever identified.
After the damage, the steel girder supports beneath the wooden deck had buckled, making it unstable. The wooden planks on one side were bowed in a wave-like pattern. The wooden deck had just been replaced in 2016.
PennDOT held a public hearing in October 2015 asking residents whether it should rehabilitate the aging bridge or build a new one to accommodate larger truck traffic from natural gas production plants. The bridge was built in the early 1900s and its weight limit forces heavier trucks to use other routes to reach the plants in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.