The news coming out of a public meeting Wednesday evening on the future of Liberty Memorial Bridge is that the cost of repairing the 80-year-old structure is expected to exceed the upper limit of previous estimates, and that there is no way of maintaining traffic on Memorial while the work is done.

The gathering at the Radisson Hotel, attended by about 50 people, was hosted by the state Department of Transportation to lay out the scope and cost of rehabiliation and to field questions. Another meeting, next month, will consider possibilities for a new bridge either to replace Memorial or to complement a repaired Memorial.

An NDDOT consultant, HDR, of Minneapolis, painted a picture of extensive damage done Memorial by weathering, de-icing chemicals and traffic. Corrosion of structural steel - even that of a deck new in 1991- and cracking and spalling of concrete involve just about every part of the bridge.

All four piers must be replaced, which will involve building a coffer dam and jacking up the trusses. Sandblasting the old lead paint off the trusses will require wrapping Memorial entirely in canvas.

"It will require closure of the bridge. There is no getting around that," said HDR vice president Charles Gonderinger. That would be for 22 months, starting from sometime in 2006.

Previous estimates of the work ranged from $15 million to $25 million. HDR now prices it at $27 million, at the end of which Bismarck-Mandan would have a bridge supposedly good for another 80 years, with periodic maintenance.

It was supposed to be a topic for September, but a member of the audience naturally wanted to know what the cost would be of a four-lane replacement for Memorial. Gonderinger said $25 million would buy a Bismarck Expressway-type bridge, plus you'd need $2 million to $3 million to remove Memorial.

Another possibility is a new two-lane bridge to complement Memorial. This could be built before the repair to the old bridge and avoid the 22-month closing of the crossing with its expense in indirection to drivers (estimated by HDR at $7 million) and in losses to business (no estimate).

Previously, the price tag put on the two-bridge option has gone as high as $45 million.

Money is an object, because Bismarck-Mandan will be responsible for 10 percent of whatever NDDOT comes up with.

Because Memorial is on the National Register of Historic Places, the state is obliged to look at repair and preservation, said Darryl Shoemaker, also of HDR. There are two tests, Shoemaker said.

"We've demonstrated that it's feasible. Now we've got to decide if it's (financially) prudent."

Several in the audience wondered why Memorial's latest deck, designed for a 20-year life, had gone to pot so rapidly. Gonderinger and NDDOT's Francis Ziegler said the public, here and around the country, demands - and will ring the phone off the wall until it gets - more and prompter de-icing, with resultant chemical wear and tear.

Ziegler said the state, repairing the Grant Marsh bridge, has uncovered 600 times the concrete deterioriation it had anticipated.

States are trying to fight back with denser concrete and milder chemicals, but it's an ongoing battle, Ziegler said.