The smile got brighter. Brennan, if you are uncomfortable with the way our community uses the easement, you are welcome to file a lawsuit. Until you do, the contractors are going to keep coming. We have 11 new builds scheduled. Roland tells me you should consider replacing the bridge with something modern.
There it was. Roland Hulkcom wanted me to spend half a million dollars on a steel concrete span so his paving company could run loads across my creek without worrying about a structure designed in 1923. I drove home that afternoon and pulled my father's bridge files from the corner cabinet. I pulled my own field notes. I pulled the recorded easement.
I sat at the kitchen table and read every page until I knew the document by heart. Then I called the North Carolina Department of Transportation District Office in Silva and spoke to a bridge engineer named Granger Pelum. Granger knew the bridge. He had inspected it twice in his career. He listened to me describe the concrete truck.
He went quiet for a long moment. Brennan. A single overweight crossing of a town lattis truss can cause cumulative damage that doesn't show for weeks. The deck planks compress. The tree nail joints loosen.
The cord members can micro fracture. You won't see it until you walk it. If they keep crossing, the bridge will fail. There was a long pause on the line. I could hear Granger flipping through what sounded like a Manila folder.
He had known my father. He had been the man who signed off on the 2008 rebuild after walking the deck with Wendell for 4 hours on a rainy April afternoon. He was 61 years old. He had 3 years until retirement. He chose his next words carefully, the way an engineer near retirement chooses words.
Brennan, I will tell you something I have been thinking about for 2 years. There is a pattern in Haywood County of small private bridges being run into the ground by developments that should be funding their own access roads. I have been collecting case files. I have a folder on a covered bridge over near Bethl and another on a single span pony truss over near Canton. The pattern is the same every time.
Ha boards run commercial trucks until the bridge fails. Then offer to buy the wreckage for a replacement contract. I asked him the question that mattered. Granger, is there anything DOT can do to stop them? Brennan, DOT can't enforce a private easement.
That's a civil matter. But if they're running commercial trucks over a posted historic structure, they're potentially in violation of NC general statutes 20-118 and the federal bridge formula. If you can document axle weights and license plates, FMCSA could open a file. And if any of those trucks have been hauling waste material, EPA gets interested. The trick is documentation.