AUGUSTA (AP) – Maine’s capital city is divided over a so-called “suicide prevention fence” on the Memorial Bridge.

The 11-foot-tall fence was removed a year ago during repairs of the bridge over the Kennebec River. But the Maine Department of Transportation is ready to begin replacing it as soon as this week at a cost of $350,000.

The temporary removal of the fence restored views of the Kennebec River, the Capitol dome and Augusta’s historic arsenal. Critics of the fence say its restoration marks the return of a painful symbol of the city’s past.

“The bridge did become symbolic of suicide,” said Dr. Lawrence Mutty, past president of the Maine Association of Psychiatric Physicians.

The fence, erected after a spate of deaths, is the only one of its type in the state, according to the Maine Sunday Telegram.

Between 1960 and 1982, 14 people jumped to their deaths, and nine of them were patients at the Augusta Mental Health Institute.

Now AMHI is closed, care for the mentally ill has improved, and Augusta’s suicide rate has dipped 35 percent. There have been no suicides from the bridge since the fence was taken down in Augusta 2005.

“I think that stigma is no longer here,” said Karen Foster, a former city councilor, “and we don’t need the fence to remind us of our past.”

Donna Lerman, a current city councilor who organized a failed petition drive that would have put an advisory question about the fence to local voters, said the fence’s temporary removal boosted civic pride.

“I think people had lost a sense of pride in the city,” Lerman said. “And that raised people’s spirits.”

Many people feel a fence wouldn’t stop someone who’s intent on committing suicide. That’s an oft-heard argument, but fence supporters say it betrays a lack of understanding about the impulsive nature of some suicides.

Helen Bailey, public policy director at the Disability Rights Center in Augusta, said she supports a fence on the Memorial Bridge, just as she does on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, which has witnessed more than 1,000 suicides since it opened in 1937.

Maine has seen 12 bridge suicides since 1998, according to statistics from the state medical examiner’s office in Augusta.

There are no plans to install similar fences elsewhere. With 2,700 bridges statewide, it would simply cost too much money to install a barrier on every one, said Wayne Frankhauser, project manager at the Maine Department of Transportation.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-11-05-06 1341EST

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