Two state DOT bridge maintenance shops, each with about 50 workers, are responsible for maintaining about 400 state-owned bridges in St. Lawrence, Jefferson, Franklin, Lewis and Clinton counties.

According to state Department of Transportation Region 7 spokesman Mike Flick, each year the Region 7 workers:

• wash about 300 structures, which keeps dirt and debris from accumulating on structural steel and bearings. A buildup would accelerate corrosion and hinder the proper operation of bearings.

• seal about 25 bridge decks, similar to a seal a homeowner would put on a yard deck. It helps to slow down salt penetration and extend the service life of the deck.

• repair or replace about 40 armor joints, which are the angle iron and rubber gasket fixtures at either end of a structure allowing expansion and contraction. These have a finite life cycle and are a typical maintenance item.

• service about 200 sets of bearings, which are the assemblies that sit atop the concrete substructures and connect the substructure to the structural steel. These are jacked up, cleaned and lubricated routinely to ease expansion and contraction of the structural steel.

• make repairs to concrete substructures as part of their routine. They may include jack hammering out failing sections of concrete and then re-forming and pouring the repair, and may also include chipping the face off spalled surfaces and recoating them with shotcrete.

Crews also do more extensive repairs such as heat straightening of beams that may have suffered impact damage.

Other extensive repairs may include the cutting out and replacement of structural steel that has corroded to the point that it needs to be repaired, as is being done on the State Rt. 58 bridge near Fine.