It's been almost two years since the Vilas Bridge, the crumbling historic concrete span that links Bellows Falls and North Walpole, N.H., was closed by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation (NHDOT).
It might be another four years before it reopens, and that is only if New Hampshire somehow finds the $3.4 million, and the political will, to fix a bridge in a part of the state that most politicians in Concord rarely think about.
Considering that another bridge exists barely a half mile away, there is little urgency to fix the Vilas Bridge.
Brattleboro residents can relate. The two Route 119 bridges over the Connecticut River, the primary route into Hinsdale, N.H., are both rated as substandard by NHDOT. Both nearly 90 years old, they are scheduled to be replaced by a single span south of the current crossing. Work is supposed to start in 2015, at a cost of $32.15 million.
Unfortunately, that work may not happen on schedule.
The current Tea Party-dominated New Hampshire Legislature has cut the transportation budget. Although both the Vilas Bridge and the Hinsdale Bridge are on the NHDOT 10-year plan, both projects may not start on schedule, or at all, after a $54 million cut from the fiscal 2012-13 state budget.
Why does Vermont have to be held hostage to the political whims of New Hampshire when it comes to making sure the bridges between the two states are safe?
It's a long, but interesting, story.
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The Connecticut River has been the boundary between New Hampshire and Vermont since both states joined the Union. But which state did the river belong to? That was the subject of more than a century of controversy.
One would think the two states would settle on having the boundary down the middle of the river, similar to how New York and Vermont split jurisdiction over Lake Champlain.
But when it comes to Vermont and New Hampshire, compromise rarely happens.
The trouble goes all the way back to the Colonial period. The boundaries of the New Hampshire Grants were the source of a long-running dispute between New Hampshire and New York - until Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys settled the argument by creating the Republic of Vermont in 1777.
When Vermont was admitted into the Union in 1791, the state's eastern boundary was set as the low-water mark on the west bank of the Connecticut River. But exactly where the boundary lay was never was completely settled, particularly because New Hampshire contested the location of the low water mark.
As a result, New Hampshire maintained the right to tax property on the west bank of the river. It taxed 30 bridges and six dams, all of which extended across the river, but apparently without reference to any defined boundary. New Hampshire also claimed the right to tax structures on the west bank of the river, particularly structures associated with the Bellows Falls and Vernon dams.
After decades of argument, the case finally went before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1933, when the court decided, once and for all, that the boundary of New Hampshire extended to the low-water mark on the west bank of the Connecticut River, as was originally intended back in 1791. Only when the river overflows its banks does any of it belong to Vermont.
Some would say it isn't fair to give New Hampshire the river, since a dozen major tributaries that feed it - including the Williams, Saxtons, West and Deerfield rivers in Windham County - originate in Vermont.
Then again, the three lakes where the river originates are in northern New Hampshire.
And that is why Vermonters' ability to cross the Connecticut River lies in the hands of the New Hampshire Legislature.
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When New Hampshire ended up having responsibility for the upkeep and replacement of all the bridges spanning the Connecticut, Vermont came out ahead on the deal.
But that fact has also made the state vulnerable to all the political and budgetary considerations of an entirely different state when it comes to investing in infrastructure essential to the lives and livelihoods of people who live and work in the Green Mountain State.
And, given Vermont's financial shortfalls, if the tables were turned, would the situation be any better?
Brattleboro Town Manager Barbara Sondag, commenting on Vermont Public Radio about the delay of the replacement for the Hinsdale Bridge, described the span as “an old piece of infrastructure that needs to be replaced, and unfortunately, every time one of these projects gets delayed, the price increases."
As she pointed out, “It's not an issue that's going away for either the state of New Hampshire or the state of Vermont.”
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