Erving Select Board Votes Unanimously to Remove Flood-Damaged Swamp Road Bridge

ERVING -- July 19, 2021, Erving Select Board votes to demolish sinking Swamp Road bridge after catastrophic weekend flooding. Meeting in emergency session on July 19, Chair Jacob Smith and members William Bembury and James Loynd voted unanimously on three actions: ratifying a state of emergency Smith declared at 4:30 a.m. on July 18, authorizing removal of the Swamp Road bridge over Keyup Brook after engineers from Weston Sampson found visible cracking in the abutment footings and roughly six inches of sinking by midday Monday, and approving emergency riprap reinforcement of a failing retaining wall on North Street where erosion had reached within approximately two feet of the town sewer line. Highway Superintendent Glenn reported 22 hours of overtime logged since Sunday morning; Fire Chief Wonka, reached while on vacation, said he expected all departmental overtime to be reimbursable through FEMA. The board also fielded an extended public comment from a Keyup Brook resident who described boulders "precariously balanced with nothing on the water side" and decades of soil loss, pressing the board to rope off brook banks and pursue state intervention on privately owned retaining walls the town has been unable to act on without clearer legal authority.