In late May work will commence on the busy 65-year-old steel swing bridge connecting Southport island with the mainland.

The Maine Department of Transportation has issued a notice of intent to award contract to North Star Painting of Youngstown, Ohio, according to Mr. Devin Anderson MDOT project manager for bridge programs. It is now up to North Star to fill all the necessary paperwork and show the state their plans to comply with safety regulations and to assure quality control.

Painting is based on temperature with 40 degrees as a limit you dont want to dip below. By mid-November the weather is not suitable to accomplish the task. The bridge work is anticipated to take five months so it is in North Stars best interest to complete the paper-work as quickly as possible. If everything meets with MDOT satisfaction, they can go to work, the sooner the better.

I cant give a definite date for work to begin, well have a better idea in a couple of weeks, but it will probably be shortly before Memorial Day.

I have worked with North Star before, said Anderson. They are a good outfit and do good work. Bids for work on the Southport Swing Bridge were received from Connecticut, Florida, New York and Ohio. There were no Maine bidders.

Bridge maintenance is scheduled due to need as determined by routine inspections. There will be replacement of structural steel members occurring at the same time as the painting is being done. We dont know yet if North Star will be doing the structural steel member replacements or if they will subcontract out. The project will include the replacement, in kind, of the bridges wooden sidewalk and handrails.

In the contract with North Star three holiday weekends were designated as work-free including the weekends of Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day, said Anderson.

Once bridge work commences road traffic across the bridge will be limited to one 10-foot wide lane. Traffic lights will be placed on either side of the bridge to regulate traffic flow.

Townsend Gut, flowing beneath the bridge, is one of the states busiest boat traffic thoroughfares. Boat traffic and with the bridges opening for the water traffic will be impacted by the bridge work. MDOT has instructed the Southport Swing Bridge tenders to open the bridge not on demand, per usual, but on two-hour increment scheduled openings from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. (e.g. at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., and 4 p.m.); from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the bridge will open on demand.

Boat traffic will be diverted from the two existing lanes beneath the bridge to one as work is being conducted overhead, said Southport Bridge tender Duane Lewis. We will have two tenders on the job so as to communicate fully with boaters and ensure safety.

All we ask is the good people of the Boothbay region bear with us during the next few months while the necessary bridge work is being done. We regret to say, that due to safety concerns there will be no fishing from the bridge this summer.

The Southport Swing Bridge first opened to vehicular traffic on September 3, 1939; two wooden bridges preceded the present bridge linking Southport to the mainland.