Province reluctant to admit rickety N.B. bridge was slated for demolition, documents show

When the William Mitton Covered Bridge in Riverview was torn down last winter, many were heartbroken.

But its demolition was not surprising. 

Closed to traffic since 1981, the bridge developed a dramatic sag in the middle, its abutments looked ready to pop, and several beams hung lazily from the roof they once held up. 

Documents obtained by CBC News after a right to information request reveal the New Brunswick government's reluctance to publicly admit the bridge was slated for demolition, despite having made plans a year and a half earlier to get rid of it. 

The documents also show an official with the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure called for a provincial strategy to handle aging covered bridges in a less reactive way.

"We are at a point in time when a discussion has to be made to invest in the covered bridge or dismantle," Glen MacDonald, the assistant director of bridge maintenance, wrote in June 2023. "There is no funding allotted for this bridge at this time."

But when CBC reported on the bridge's rough condition the next month, a department spokesperson would only say the future of the bridge was "yet to be determined."

Just days after the CBC story, a department superintendent, Jean-Marc Arseneault, wrote in an email that he concluded the bridge was beyond repair. 

"The structure should be removed before someone gets hurt," Arsenault said. 

That same day, Corey White of the planning and project development division wrote: "I know I am speaking to the choir here, but we really need direction from [the province] on these bridges as we will see lots more of these last-minute issues — and we can manage these in an orderly fashion if we were to get the strategy approved."

By August, DTI was drafting diagrams of how to remove the bridge. 

That November, the department received an inspection report from a hired consultant in Fredericton.

"The structure should be demolished and removed as soon as possible," said the report from Hilcon Ltd., adding that it was too dangerous to have workers near it.

"In our opinion, a complete structural collapse is imminent and controlled demolition is preferable to allowing the structure to collapse into the watercourse below."