The United States Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to extend its public comment period for the Hix Bridge reclamation project until Saturday, March 12, following a request by the Westport Select Board.

The corps had given interested parties until this Thursday to comment on the proposal to relocate tons of debris that had been dumped under the bridge over the years. But select board chairwoman Shana Shufelt and others throughout the community had requested more time, saying they need more time to make informed and educated comments.

"We are in the process of collecting information from the many interested stakeholders and are concerned that this process will go beyond Feb. 11," Shufelt wrote in a Wednesday, Feb. 2 letter to the corps' New England District.

"We trust that you understand that a thoughtful and informed response might require a bit more time."

The news of the extension was greeted happily late last week by Deb Weaver, the executive director of the Westport River Watershed Alliance. Though she said the alliance is still doing due diligence and isn't ready to comment on the nature of its response, she said "we were relieved to get an extension on the response time."

The project

The Hix Bridge has been in the works for nearly a decade. The corps committed to the cleanup after it was determined that thousands of cubic yards of concrete and granite debris under the bridge had been dumped there under the agency's watch, during various bridge reconstruction projects and after the 1938 Hurricane.

According to the initial 30-day notice filed in January, the corps' plan is to "remove piles of stone debris in the East Branch of the Westport River ... to restore river connectivity for shellfish habitat. Ecosystem restoration benefits will be measured in terms of acres of shellfish habitat restored in the system."

"The stone will be placed in deep scour holes located upstream and downstream of Hix Bridge," the notice reads. "About 3,000 cubic yards of stone debris material would be removed from the waterway in the bridge openings by barge-mounted excavating equipment and placed in the scour holes."

Staging of construction equipment and access would be from town-owned lands northwest and southeast of the bridge.

Funding

The cost of the cleanup was initially estimated at around $1 million. The Corps would pitch in $612,000 of that cost, and an amendment to a state transportation bill passed in 2014 set aside $387,500 for the state and town shares. That money is still available, though it will expire in 2024.