Attention drivers and residents in the Multnomah County area: officials have announced that S.E. Cochran Road will be off-limits starting Monday, June 23, as crews dive into several months of extensive bridge repairs. The stretch between N.E. Paloma Avenue and S. Troutdale Road is set to be closed from 7:00 a.m., with detour signs rerouting traffic to S.E. Stark Street, as reported by Multnomah County's official news advisory. The road is anticipated to reopen its arms to commuters by early winter.
What's on the reconstruction menu? Quite an assortment of infrastructure delicacies: demolition and rebuilding of road surfaces, shoulders, guardrails, storm drains, retaining walls, and French drains. An incorrect batch of low-density cellular concrete (LDCC) is the villain behind the closure, which has been bleeding high pH water into Beaver Creek. All this is topped with a fresh garnish of native greenery as damaged soil takes the exit and gets replaced by new, uncontaminated earth.
A little history provides context—back in 2019, eagle-eyed officials detected that LDCC was the source of an unintentional chemical experiment in the local waterways, immediately taking steps to halt the environmental faux pas. This construction operation is touted as the closing chapter in a saga of remediation efforts, according to the same county announcement.
