Bridge work - a risky business.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: Brief Article

For the better part of six years, Bill Watts has been thinking about bridges; how to maintain them and how to protect the crews that work on them.

Sandblasting, painting and performing routine repairs on towering suspension bridges is often work the general public pays little attention to, says Watts, the founder of Bridge Vail International Inc. It's only when tragedy strikes, such as in last year's fatal scaffolding collapse on the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, that people and legislators suddenly take notice.

"Abridge is one of the toughest environments to work in," says Watts, who also runs a small engineering firm on the side and has

* started a half dozen companies since graduating as a mechanical engineer from the University of Toronto in 1970. "There's wind, rain, height, traffic and lead dust from the paint - all kinds of different hazards."

Tapping into the knowledge of one of his early business partners, bridge worker Wilf Vaillancourt, he designed a scaffolding that was easy to install or dismantle, would shield workers from the elements and easily roll along a bridge deck without impeding traffic.

His Mobile Workstation, designed for suspension and girder bridges, has landed him contracts to work on the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge and the Seaway International Bridge at Cornwall. Bridge Vall offers a fully integrated, lightweight modular platform, for sale or lease, which can be custom-fitted for any size of bridge structure. Winches move the workstation into place along the bridge deck where it's secured with heavy cables. Crews are not required on the platform during moves.

"We've had a number of learning experiences early on,", laughs Watts in recalling his experiences with the first prototype on the International Bridge in 1996. High winds played havoc with the large sections of tarps enclosing the work platform...