Rallying around Katy Bridge

J.B. Garrett worked as a conductor and brakeman for the Missouri-Kansas-Texas railroad for 33 years, retiring in 1975. He said Boonville wouldn’t be the same without the Boonville Lift Bridge spanning the Missouri River.

He’s not alone. For many in the state, the bridge, also known as the Katy Bridge, is an important piece of history that they want to keep from becoming scrap metal.

Garrett was among the dozens of people gathered outside the Boonville Depot on Sunday for the second annual Save the Katy Bridge Festival. Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman biked the 13.5 miles along the Katy Trail from Rocheport to Boonville on Sunday to cheer on those who want to save the bridge.

“This is an important event,” Hindman told the crowd. “That bridge behind you is a real jewel and should be part of the Katy Trail.”

That’s what the Save the Katy Bridge Organization, state Attorney General Jay Nixon and others have been fighting for over the past two years.

In 2004, Union Pacific Railroad Co. announced plans to dismantle the rust-colored structure and use the recycled steel to build a new bridge near Jefferson City. It seemed likely that the bridge would come down that year. The company even signed a $9.8 million contract with Fulton-based OCCI Inc. to dismantle the bridge.

But then Boonville residents, Katy Trail supporters and Nixon challenged those plans. Nixon sued the railroad company and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, whose director claimed the state owned no interest in the bridge.

Nixon, however, argued the state acquired property interest in the bridge in 1987 with the passage of the Rails to Trails Interim Agreement, which made it part of Katy Trail State Park. Under that agreement, MKT Railroad still owned the bridge but allowed the state to use it as part of the trail. Union Pacific bought MKT in 1988.

So is the Boonville Lift Bridge just a bridge, or is it more than that?

For Union Pacific, the bridge is a chance to save millions of dollars.

“Steel prices have escalated dramatically since the plan (to recycle the bridge) was developed,” said James Barnes, a spokesman for the company.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources, for its part, sees the bridge as a drain on the state. Kurt Schaefer, the department’s deputy director and general counsel, said it would cost $6 million to $12 million just to renovate the bridge for pedestrian use, plus much more for maintenance costs and liability insurance.

But Paula Shannon, chairwoman of the Save the Katy Bridge Organization, disputes the department’s figures. She said the bridge could be renovated for just

$1 million.

Nixon has said that the state has a stake in the bridge and that allowing the railroad company to reclaim it could make it easier for other property owners to reclaim land that is now part of Katy Trail State Park.

“There is a legitimate and tangible state interest in the bridge,” said John Fougere, press secretary for the attorney general’s office. “The director of DNR does not have the unilateral authority to give it away.”

Shannon wants to see the historic bridge renovated for pedestrian use as a part of Katy Trail State Park. She said the bridge brings tourists to Boonville and is one of the most photographed places in town.

Boonville Economic Development Director Sarah Gallagher echoed those sentiments.

“Tourism is a growing part of our economy,” Gallagher said. “The bridge is in and of itself representative of a time in our history that I think is extremely important to preserve.”

For Shannon, the bridge, built during the height of the Great Depression, is more than a tourist attraction — it’s a part of Boonville’s history.

“The actual design of the lift bridge was the first of its kind and is still being used today,” Shannon said. “We want to share the history of the bridge and the MKT Railroad with the community. It has historic value.”

Shannon said the bridge is also an integral part of the Katy Trail State Park, linking the trail across the Missouri River. Currently, pedestrians and bicyclists have to go out of their way to cross the highway bridge to get across the river.

“It would eliminate confusion on how to get across the river and provide a direct link to the north side of Katy Trail,” Shannon said.

The battle over the bridge is far from over. It has already taken more than a year to move lawsuits over the bridge through Cole County Circuit Court, and they are now in the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District.

The delay, said Barnes, the Union Pacific spokesman, has hurt the railroad.

“Putting this off any longer would further damage our ability to serve our customers as well as we would like,” Barnes said.

But the drawn-out battle has helped those hoping to preserve the bridge. Shannon said the Save the Katy Bridge Organization has already raised close to $485,500, which the organization says is enough to develop 900 feet of the north side of the bridge and 3,000 feet of trail approaching the bridge.

“Time has worked to our benefit,” Shannon said. “Our support has been far-reaching. Support keeps growing.”

Meanwhile, the legal wrangling continues. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources and Union Pacific will file its briefs in Nixon’s appeal in November, and then Nixon will file his reply to those briefs. It will be even longer before the appeals court will hear arguments from both sides of the lawsuit.

In addition, another lawsuit filed on behalf of bicyclists by Ken Midkiff of the Missouri Sierra Club and Jeff Smith, a professor at Washington University and a Democratic congressional candidate, will have to work its way through the appeals court.

Midkiff and Smith are represented by Bruce Morrison, an attorney at the St. Louis-based Great Rivers Environmental Law Firm who also represents five people who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Nixon’s lawsuit. He cautions that the legal issues swirling around the bridge — like the Missouri River itself — are muddy.

“I grimace a bit if I hear somebody from our side of the fence say with certainty that taking down the Boonville bridge is going to kill the Katy Trail or threatens its existence as much as I do when I hear opponents say the trail won’t be impacted,” he said. “Both sides are spouting rhetoric because the law is not that clear.”