SEQUIM — A portion of a damaged trestle on Railroad Bridge was removed by a demolition team over the weekend to allow free passage of spawning salmon, chinook and pink salmon.

The salmon have begun migrating up the Dungeness River and are expected to begin spawning in mid-August.

The rain-swollen Dungeness River on Feb. 6 tore away pilings and a truss section of the trestle — located in Railroad Bridge Park, 2151 W. Hendrickson Road.

The trestle is west of the Railroad Bridge on the Olympic Discovery Trail.

The bridge itself is undamaged, but traffic over it has been closed since February because the trestle is unsafe.

Railroad Bridge Park, the Howe Bridge Truss and the connecting trestle are owned by the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe, which funded the demolition.

On Saturday and Sunday, the demolition crew removed about 90 feet of the trestle in preparation for construction of a new one.

The trestle is 570 feet long.

The work, which saw the removal of five pile bents that were in contact with the river channel, was completed Sunday.

The demolition crew consisted of three workers using two 42,000-pound excavating machines.

The machines worked “jointly to hand the pilings off from one to another so they didn’t have to cross any of the river channels,” Annette Nesse, chief operations officer for the Jamestown S’Klallam, said Monday.

New construction is slated to begin at the end of the month, pending final reviews in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the allotment of required permits.

That process is currently in progress, according to the tribe.

In early May, the tribe secured a $172,000 grant from the state Recreation and Conservation Office’s Salmon Recovery Fund Board to fund the design phase.

The board has provided an additional $1.53 million in funding for the replacement project, according to the tribe.

The tribe chose to perform the demolition last weekend to ensure the salmon have plenty of space available to move about and spawn.

Short fish window

“From a biological perspective, the fish window for work in contact with the Dungeness River channel is very short,” Nesse said.

“Until mid-July, steelhead fry are emerging from the gravel. Fry emergence is a sensitive life stage, and so work must wait for that period to finish.”

Then, between mid-July and mid-August, there is a brief time slot when instream work will be less harmful, she said.

“The spawning is generally considered to be mid-August, but the sooner work could be completed, the better,” she added.

“We were able to avoid a critical fish life cycle period and conduct the work with minimal impact.”

Since the bridge closure began in February, the tribe has sought funding and worked with design engineers to determine the best fix for the trestle, built in the 1960s.

The tribe, working with numerous stakeholders, has concluded the best option is to completely remove and replace the trestle.

By end of year

“If we are able to stay on schedule with the permitting and the preparement of a contract to build the structure, we hope to be done by the end of December of this year,” Nesse said, noting that the bridge would reopen to the public shortly thereafter.

The replacement design will allow logs and migrating salmon to pass beneath the new trestle without hindrance by reducing the number of support beams needed to prop up the walkway.

The trestle previously was propped up in 38 areas by five creosote poles in each location. The depth of the pilings varies from 6 to 25 feet.

The new design incorporates only three support structures beneath the trestle, providing much more space for debris and fish to pass beneath without getting jammed up.

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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.