Hood River-White Salmon Bridge project officials have nearly secured two-thirds of the bridge replacement project’s estimated $520 million price tag with another $8 million in federal earmarks announced this week.
The money approved by Congress last week came from two $4 million appropriation requests submitted in spring 2023 — one from Oregon and the other from Washington at the request of Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.
This latest round of funding comes after the project was awarded a $200 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in January. The project now has $327 million in committed funds — about 63 percent of the project’s estimated cost.
About 70 miles east of Vancouver in the Columbia River Gorge, the seismically deficient, nearly 100-year-old bridge has had a 15 mph speed limit for years. It will be replaced by a concrete two-lane, fixed-span bridge with an attached bike and pedestrian path running side-by-side with traffic, which the current bridge lacks.
