Washington state and the federal government are considering actions to lower the ever-increasing risk of a container ship striking Longview’s Lewis and Clark Bridge, potentially causing the 95-year-old bridge to collapse.
But the proposed fixes are far from finalized, and funding for one solution could be removed from the proposed budget amid the state’s immense budget shortfalls.
The risk of collapse has increased because ships have roughly doubled in size since the present channel was built.
In addition, pilots must use imprecise data sources to make calculations on how close their ships are coming to the underside of the bridge.
State lawmakers, policy experts and budget wonks are currently deciding in Olympia whether to keep funding in the transportation budget for sensors that would take out the guess work of piloting giant ships under the Lewis and Clark and Megler bridges.
And at the federal level, the U.S. Coast Guard is evaluating a plan to move the federal deep water navigation channel away from the Longview bridge’s east piling into the center of the river to keep large vessels further away from the bridge.
The Columbia River shipping industry started an advocacy push to address these problems with air gap sensors and other options about a decade ago, said Kate Mickelson, executive director of the Columbia River Steamship Operators’ Association, which represents the shipping industry.
Capt. Jeremy Nielsen, the president of the Columbia River Pilots, which pilots ships from Astoria, said the efforts to work with state and federal agencies intensified around 2020 after the leaders discovered three ships in the Columbia had actually been taller than reported.
“So once we found out that,” he said, “what we did is we started making this push for the air gap sensors.”
The sensors would be mounted under the bridge to measure the exact distance from the bottom of the bridge’s deck down to the water, providing the pilot’s precise information for their calculations.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has added these sensors to 18 bridges across the country.
“The estimated cost to install the air gap sensors is about $300,000 total ($150,000 for Washington), plus ongoing maintenance,” wrote Sarah Hannon-Nein, a spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation, in an email to The Daily News.
The pilots also instituted a policy requiring any vessel that is going to be within about 10 feet of the underside of the bridge to keep marine surveyors on board to give them reliable data.
But surveyors alone won’t solve the issue, said Nielsen, because over time, age, heat, vehicle load and more affect the structures.
Washington’s 2025-27 enacted transportation budget includes a little over $1 million for the sensors and other safety measures for the bridges.
The money is “for Washington's share of efforts to mitigate collision risk at the Lewis and Clark and Astoria-Megler bridges, including a vessel collision risk assessment, installation of an air gap sensor, and expansion of the virtual coordination center,” the budget reads.
And the most recent supplemental transportation budget for the next year still contains that funding. But whether the funding will make it into the final transportation budget that Gov. Bob Ferguson eventually signs, however, is still an open question in the shipping industry.
“I've been assured by WashDOT that those air gap sensors are essentially a done deal,” said Washington state Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview. “It's just a matter of them getting installed.”
“And it's a long time coming, any form of improvement to keep a bridge from falling down or being injured,” he continued. “Obviously, the Keys Bridge in Baltimore should have been a chilling wake up call.”
After years of work on the issue, Wilson said things are “well past the pinky promise.”
Ryan Overton, deputy communications director for the state department of transportation, emphasized “the air gap sensors were funded in the 2025 legislative session and the agency is committed to funding them with our ODOT partners through the completion of the project.”
Wilson said he expects the Washington funding will remain safe both because the budget is specific in its language and because items in transportation budgets generally survive the second year of the biennium.
But he cautioned Oregon’s funding for the project may fall apart given the state, and especially its department of transportation, is in budget turmoil. A spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Transportation confirmed, "Yes, we will be sharing the cost," when asked if they are still planning to keep their half of the commitment.
Last month the U.S. Coast Guard also sought approval to move the navigation channel as it passes through Longview to stay further away from the bridge’s Washington-side support pier.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers already studied and approved the project, giving it the greenlight in July, said Kerry Solan, a local spokesperson for the agency.
“We ran ship simulations with the Coast Guard and the Columbia River Pilots, and that study confirmed the safest place to cross under the Longview Bridge is at its highest point,” she said.
The U.S. Coast Guard did not return requests for comment on the project timeline. But once approved, the Corps will chart the new channel’s route, and it will be dredged.
The new channel location would buy pilots about 8 feet of additional clearance under the bridge because of its arch. But as the ships surpass 1,000 feet long and push 200 feet tall, the pilots are in a business of inches now.
For all the talk of ways to lower the risk of a ship bringing down the bridge, the potential impacts are unthinkable to many.
“A bridge outage in this corridor would result in significant public safety and economic impacts,” read a November letter to Washington’s Legislature from a dozen shipping groups.
“Loss of the span would force long detours for commuters, freight, and emergency services—delaying access to hospitals and critical resources,” it continued.
The bridge supports an average daily traffic of roughly 20,000 vehicles per day, data from the Washington State Department of Transportation shows. Many people in Oregon use the bridge to commute to the large base of industrial jobs in Longview.
Wilson, who represents the area, said that while the current bridge deserves maintenance, the region needs a new bridge to solve the issues long term.
“We need to get to that bridge, sooner or later, into the capital projects list,” Wilson said. “Not duct tape, not repairs once in a while — because, quite frankly, how long do you think a two-lane bridge was designed for?”
