| OTIA III State Bridge Delivery Program |
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| Web Brief (Jul 07) |
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Reedsport seventh-grade students build bat habitats.
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Bridge-building and bat habitat 101
Seventh-grade students at Reedsport Junior/High School are contributing to their community at an early age, thanks to public involvement activities developed by the bridge program contractors working on Bundle 401, Oregon 38: Elk Creek to Hardscrabble Creek. The five bridges slated for replacement in this bundle will include something that the students have made themselves: bat boxes.
On a visit to the school, Randy Reeve, environmental manager for Parametrix, first explained bat preferences to the students: They eat hundreds of insects every hour, so living by a river is ideal for them. And as mature trees in which they would formerly have roosted are being cleared for development across the state, bridges provide essential alternative roosting spots.
Fifty students then set to work building the bats some homes. Slayden Construction Group, the contractor on Bundle 401, precut the wood for the students, who assembled the boxes with screws. The one-and-a-half by two-foot wooden boxes have a wide opening at the bottom, for easy entry, and are narrower at the top, because bats like to roost in close, crowded spaces. This design also allows the bats to regulate their temperature: They can move toward the opening if they want to cool down and up to the top when they want to be warmer.
The project team also met with Reedsport High School geometry classes to discuss bridge design and the relationship between geometry and structural analysis, and with seniors to discuss entry-level job opportunities in construction. The varied public involvement activities were created and coordinated by Zetlin Strategic Communications, a subconsultant to T.Y. Lin International.
In addition to conducting the sessions at the Reedsport school, the project team also made a presentation to the Reedsport City Council about the upcoming replacement of five bridges on Oregon 38 between Drain and Elkton, an essential route between the coast and Interstate 5.
“We enjoy working with the public,” said John Ferguson, regional transportation director at T.Y. Lin International, the firm that, with Slayden Construction, will design and build Bundle 401. “Our schools program for this project has been an effective way to engage the people who live near and use the bridges every day.”
Slayden Construction will install the bat boxes underneath the bridges as they’re built or in trees within the bridges’ right of way. Since all the students signed the bat box they created, they will have made a personal mark on bridges that are designed to last 50 to 75 years.
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