The $300,000 Bridge To Nowhere Traditional Cache
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The $300,000 Bridge To Nowhere
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On April 2, 1995 Margie Boule wrote an article in the Portland Oregonian, "Your Tax Dollars At Work: The $300,000 Bridge To Nowhere" Here's your chance to visit it and learn the real story...
The cache is an ammo box placed a short distance off of the new Neal Creek Road. It is where the old Neal Creek Road used to be before the infamous bridge and the Flood of '96.
There is a lot more to the whole "$300,000 Bridge To Nowhere" than Margie let us know.
The original Neal Creek Bridge had been deteriorating over the years. It had gotten to the point where the county had closed it down to a one-way bridge to reduce the load. The county budgeted $30,000 to replace the bridge with a culvert.
That's when the fun began! Someone on the Board of Commissioners found out that the county could apply for State and Federal funds. They would only have to pay 10% of the cost.
Unfortunately, along with those funds came State and Federal bridge standards. A culvert was no longer acceptable. The county didn't seem to mind the added cost. After all, they only had to pay 10%, right?
The design was completed and the total cost was approaching $300,000.
All of a sudden the county commission was outraged by the high price tag and a call was made to Margie Boule, famous for pointing out these kinds of injustices.
Margie wrote the aforementioned article to let people know about this waste of tax dollars.
But, with the "facts" presented in the article it should have been published on April 1st instead of the 2nd.
She told how, when the road was first built, cars just drove through the creek. Hmmmm... The creek is 4 feet deep at the crossing.
One of the county commissioners stated that at the bridge she could jump across the creek. When I read that I wondered to myself why she was on the county commission. After all, the width of the creek at the bridge was in excess of the women's world long jump record! And for a woman around 50 years old, that's pretty impressive!
I found it odd how the rising price was never a concern until it got to a point where the county's share was going to rise above their budgeted $30,000. Why wasn't it a concern at $200,000? Seems they didn't care how many tax dollars were wasted until it was THEIR tax dollars!
Just to make the story more interesting, after the bridge was built in 1995, we had a flood in 1996. The water in Neal Creek came roaring down the canyon. It got to a crossing of the creek that the county had cobbled together over the years out of half a dozen different sized pipes.
It was no match for the flood waters. The pipes, along with trees and other debris, were washed down stream where they slammed into the New Neal Creek Bridge. Thanks to the State and Federal bridge standards it withheld the beating.
Unfortunately, the torrent went around the bridge and washed away more than a quarter mile of the county road. You can see some of the old asphalt near the cache.
The county road now goes up over a hill to get to the Neal Creek Bridge to maintain access to the only house on the road. Then it dead ends.
So, now you know the real story of the $300,000 bridge to nowhere.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
haqre ybt