Dear Editor:

My friend Bill Pearson’s July 14 article on the bridge’s MDOT hearing illustrates why it’s so frustrating and costly and to get anything done today.

Our 85-year-old Southport Bridge barely gets a ‘fair’ rating in a number of categories yet “having an Osprey Nest nearby” and apparently being  a “critical site for Atlantic salmon and sturgeon” are notable factors slowing down the rehabilitation of the only road access to our island town.

I’ve been around Boothbay since the late ’50s but have never heard of anyone seeing (least of all catching) a salmon or sturgeon in Townsend Gut and homeowners abutting the bridge are probably in more fear of eminent domain than the osprey (who rebuilds her nest when necessary without government help). Yet bureaucratic overreach continues.

It makes little sense that these things take precedence over expediently getting on with serving the 3,255 vehicles that cross our bridge every day (computes to almost 1.2 million crossings per year!). 

At least we won’t have Wiscasset’s multi decade debate about a by-pass. We’ve only got one bridge and most of us are “pretty attached to it.”

Nick Hurd

Southport