Locally-engineered span looks to address current needs, future demands
Local elected officials and community members joined engineers at Otak, Inc. to dedicate a new steel truss bridge over the Washougal River in Camas last week.
The event officially ended a project nearly four years in the making, complicated by an intricate web of differing needs and schedules, according to Tom Walsh, a principal in Otak's Vancouver office.
"As with a lot of these projects, it's a function of funding coming together," Walsh said. "It's also a question of how the trails and paths that line the river come together."
Though the primary purpose of the estimated $3.5 million structure is to move water from wells on the south bank of the river to residents on the north side, the new span also connects well-traveled trails through the area.
The trail's pathways include an eight-foot wide concrete "boardwalk" near the N.E. Third Ave. Loop trailhead and an eight-foot paved section – all ADA accessible and user-friendly for walkers, bicyclers and strollers. Other elements include a viewpoint, picnic site and off-street parking. The path connects to the Lacamas Heritage Trail, extending north seven-and-a-half miles through Camas along Lacamas Creek and Lacamas Lake.
The trail also links neighborhoods south of the Washougal River to the Camas City Center as well as to the 350-acre Lacamas Lake Regional Park.
The official opening of the Washougal River Greenway Trail and Bridge on Sept. 2 was the latest for Lake Oswego-based Otak, which won an Engineering Excellence Honor Award from the American Council of Engineering Companies, Oregon Chapter for the first phase of this project.
Other Otak initiatives include an alignment of W. Main Street in Kelso and the Ridgefield Pipeline Project for Clark Regional Wastewater District.
Given its emphasis on subterranean work, the open air design of the Washougal River Bridge, framed by a vista of wooded hillsides and meadows, represented a welcome change of pace for Otak's team of engineers.
"We do a lot of underground projects, so it's nice for once to do something this pretty," Walsh said.
