PARIS – Major earth-moving has been taking place for the past few weeks where the 53-year-old Brett Hill Road bridge once stood.

Workers from T. Buck Construction of Auburn were busy Wednesday securing a temporary abutment structure called a wingwall on the Route 117 side of Stony Brook. The wingwall will carry the new beams of the bridge, said Harold Pottle, project superintendent.

Starting Aug. 19, 39-foot-long cast planks will be set side by side, securing the footing for the new bridge. The $340,000 Maine Department of Transportation project will include 250 feet of new pavement on either side of the bridge.

Pottle said the work should be finished, and the road reopened, sometime in September. “The weather has a lot to do with it,” he said. The work started July 2.

Brett Hill Road residents have been using the back side of Brett Hill Road to access Route 117 while the work is ongoing.

“I think everybody seems to be adjusting to it very well,” Pottle said.

MDOT inspects bridges every two years, and during the last inspection officials concluded that for safety’s sake, a complete bridge replacement was needed.

Route 117 from Paris through Buckfield is also scheduled for major road reconstruction beginning this year.

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