Duxbury residents love their beach and the historic wooden bridge that connects them to it, and they proved that love Monday by supporting a plan to repair the Powder Point Bridge for $2.4 million.

Article 27, the repair plan, passed on a voice vote at the Annual Town Meeting without anyone voting against it.

The 25-year old bridge has structural issues that need to be addressed. Its load rating has dropped from 15 tons to 8 tons in recent years. There are problems with the cap beam connections where the horizontal timbers connect to the piles, or vertical timber. There are also many deteriorating piles. Powder Point Bridge Committee chairman Jeff Lewis, a registered engineer, explained that 44 percent of the cap beams, or 477 out of 1,090 connections, have some problems with how they fit on top of the piles and must be addressed. Repairing the cap beam connections will raise the bridge’s load rating.

Every one of the bridge’s 555 piles has either “minor, moderate or severe deterioration,” according to the state Department of Transportation. The committee recommended wrapping 160 severely deteriorated piles with fiberglass shells filled with grout.  The fiberglass jackets will be tinted with a gray epoxy coating to blend into the color of the wood.

Lewis said the pile deterioration is caused by ice floes in the tidal zone and by marine borers chewing the outer layers of wood. However, Lewis said even though the piles are very worn, they are not the cause of the structural issues and the lower load rating. This is due to the poor cap beam connections. Wrapping the piles in fiberglass can be done in phases and without bridge closures, said Lewis.

The committee considered other alternatives, such as replacing the entire bridge or replacing only the worn piles. A new bridge would be very expensive and cause a long disruption to the public’s access to Duxbury beach, said Lewis. Pile replacement would also mean bridge closures.

“We didn’t think that was a viable alternative,” Lewis said. 

Residents wondered why the repairs were necessary because when the bridge was replaced in 1987 they were told it would last 50 years.

“The bridge is iconic and it’s important to the quality of life in Duxbury,” began Myrna Walsh of Autumn Avenue, “but how did the first bridge last 100 years? And if the cap beams had problems why didn’t we notice it earlier? Also, if there are little critters, how did they get there? We were guaranteed the wood was impervious to little critters.”

Bridge Committee member Margaret Kearney, who also served on the first bridge committee 25 years ago, said the bridge wood is not as bad as it could be. The population of marine borers has increased as water pollution has abated and that has contributed to the deteriorating piles, but she said the heartwood in the interior of the piles is “very good and has not been destroyed” unlike the outer wood.

“Most of the bridge is okay,” said Kearney. “We are just hoping to keep it going.”

The committee is recommending town officials prohibit large trucks and equipment from using the bridge, while still allowing emergency vehicles to travel over it. Trucks can access the beach through Marshfield.

Lewis said the volume of traffic on the bridge does not affect the substructure like the cap beam and piles, but it does affect the decking. The Department of Public Works repairs and replaces the decking each year.

Selectmen raised beach sticker fees $10 for residents and $20 for non-residents and the revenue generated will pay for 80 percent of the repair project. For the rest, the town will borrow  $250,000 and pay it back within the operating budget so no tax override is necessary.

In other business, voters rejected Article 25, a plan to eliminate medical, dental and life insurance benefits for part-time elected town officials. This would have saved the town approximately $40,000. The measure would have affected the three selectmen, three assessors and the town moderator but not the town clerk, since that is a full-time elected position. Voters sided with officials such as nine-year Assessor James MacNab who said he would be hurt by the termination of the health insurance benefits and would have to give up his position. Some voters felt the savings were small in the face of town’s entire $57 million budget and wanted to send the message that they valued these volunteer officials more than the chance to save money.