By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Joanne Kittel has a bridge she wants you to help buy.
But it’s not any old bridge.
Kittel and the group she helps lead, View the Future, are trying to raise $75,000 by the end of July to help pay for a 142-foot suspension bridge on the Amanda Trail just south of Yachats.
She and the Yachats nonprofit have already raised $62,000 and hope to get the remainder via individual donations and grants from other nonprofits.
Even with donated help to help get the site ready, the estimated cost of the bridge isn’t cheap – up to $350,000. Kittel and Oregon State Parks and Recreation, which is managing the project, hope to have the bridge built and installed by the end of the year.
“I’m trying to raise money but do it in a way to have more people be a part of this,” Kittel said. “The more people who donate helps develop a sense of stewardship.”
Kittel is a longtime and tireless supporter of the Amanda Trail, named after Amanda De-Cuys, a blind Native American and member of the Coos tribe who in 1864 was forced by U.S. government troops to leave her husband and daughter and walk from Coos Bay to a military camp in Yachats.
Kittell and her late husband, Norman, have put their 27 acres of land adjoining the trail into a conservation easement and are donating almost three acres of the Amanda Grotto site and area around the new bridge to state parks.
The bridge would replace a 65-foot fiberglass bridge over Amanda Creek destroyed in December 2015 by a massive debris flow created by a landslide just upstream. The damage forced closure of the north section of the trail that climbs steeply up the side of Cape Perpetua.
It wasn’t until Memorial Day 2016 that local volunteers and the state were able to reopen the trail by salvaging a 16-foot portion of the old bridge and use it as a temporary creek crossing.
This is where building a new bridge gets complicated.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to pay for 75 percent of the cost to replace the old bridge. But knowing that there will likely be another slide upstream, the state and trail advocates came up with a proposal for a 142-foot long by 4-foot wide suspension bridge that will be 22 feet above the creek – and out of the way of any future slides.
FEMA is in the process of deciding if it will pay 75 percent of the cost to replace the old bridge or 75 percent of the suspension bridge, said Jeff Wagner, project manager for state parks. The estimated cost of replacing the old bridge is $215,000, he said, the suspension bridge could cost $350,000.
“It’s going to cost more, but its lifetime is going to be a lot longer,” Wagner said of the suspension bridge. “Why would you replace it and have it wash out again? At state parks we try to think long term.”
Wagner is not sure when the state will hear from FEMA about it’s decision. But the state has kept federal officials informed of each step of its proposal to build a suspension bridge.
Wagner said FEMA’s response has been slowed by large disasters last fall and winter in other parts of the United States and the government’s shutdown in January. He’s hoping for an answer by May.
“If it gets axed by FEMA we might support it as an agency,” he said. “ … this could be an Oregon Parks and Recreation Project.”
State parks is working with View the Future to help raise the $75,000, Wagner said, and might be willing to absorb other costs should FEMA pay less or there are cost overruns.
So far, Kittel says View the Future has $29,000 in donations by individuals, $10,000 from the Three Rivers Foundation, the charitable arm of the Confederated Tribes of the Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, $5,000 from the city of Yachats, $3,500 from the Perpetua Foundation/Discover Your Northwest and up to $15,000 from the Lincoln County’s land legacy program. Kittel and the group are seeking other grants as well.
Staff and students from the Angell Job Corps Center plan to take down trees on Kittel’s property at the north and south ends of the proposed bridge May 14-16, closing much of the trail during that time.
Kittel said once the new suspension bridge is in place, it should help decrease the amount of trail maintenance problems near the Amanda grotto and creek.
“The Amanda story is what helps make the trail popular,” she said. “And I want the public to understand that it is partnerships that makes all this happen.”
To learn more:
You can read more about Amanda De-Cuys, Native Americans in Yachats, the Amanda Trail and Joanne and Norman Kittel’s efforts to build the trail at:
Thank you for putting out this newsletter. It is a great service to the community
If i want to make a donation for the bridge, who do i contact?
Thanks