Walt Whitman Bridge painters live the high life

Berto Leme is always high on the job.

And the higher he gets the more of it he wants.

But it's not illicit drugs offering Leme the exhilaration.

He gets it six days a week working hundreds of feet above the Delaware River by climbing up and down the Walt Whitman Bridge towers as a rigging crew and painting foreman for Corcon, Inc., the contractor repainting the span and replacing some of the steel under its Interstate 76 roadway.

“I have always loved heights and the higher the better. I feel freer up there, like a kid. I can’t stay away from bridges. For me, it’s the place to be,” said the 47-year-old Brazilian-born Leme, a would-be airplane pilot who has been climbing bridges on the job for 26 years.

“Everybody has fear, but you have respect for where you are working and what you’re working with and you use safety protocols,” the Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, family man explained in a recent on-the-job interview on the bridge.

More:Judge orders rebid for DRPA contract

More:Open drawbridge a jolting surprise for West Deptford family

More:PATCO elevators, Ben Franklin Bridge repaving plans advance

He and other workers wear body harnesses with lanyard straps, hooks and a pulley mechanism similar to the seat belt system on a car. Besides heights, they have to contend with wind that buffets the bridge, heat and humidity.

Each of Leme’s two lanyard straps are equipped with a hook he always makes sure to attach to scaffolding to prevent falling off the 378-foot-high towers — no matter if he is standing in one spot, or moving up or down a tower face walking on the scaffold piping. 

The lanyards and hooks limit a painter’s movement to only a few feet one way or another. To climb or to move horizontally, a painter follows the path of the hooks he places either above, below or to the side of him depending on his direction of movement.

The favorite lunch spot for Leme and some of the other painters is sitting atop the two bridge towers, one on the Philadelphia side of the bridge and the other on the South Jersey side.

The lofty square pillars hold up the massive main steel cables that loop between them on both sides of the suspension bridge connecting Gloucester City and Camden with the big city across the river. Only an open railing four feet high surrounds the top of the tower, affording a commanding view of the two states for a distance of many miles and a bird's-eye perspective of the bridge's sleek lines and cables that swoop with roller coaster-like curves.

The tower also is reachable via a one-man elevator from the roadway level, but that can be used only to get to the very top.

Blast cleaning and spray painting of the towers was done first and inside a containment covering that has since been removed. Touch-up painting is now being done out in the open on the Pennsylvania tower.

On the towers, the painters dangle standing inside one- or two-man metal baskets they maneuver inside the scaffolding to paint while inspectors stand on the scaffolding to check their work.

While the tower work continued recently, painter Joe Carlson of Alloway was closer to the middle of the bridge standing inside a movable basket on a boom lift that elevated him above the roadway.

He looked ghostlike in his protective suit, helmet and mask covered with residue from spray painting a white primer coat on the 24-inch-diameter main steel cable section that hangs above the edge of the roadway on the bridge's south side.

Almost deafening and constant bridge traffic whizzed by though the outside traffic lane behind him was closed to accommodate contractor vehicles, equipment and workers.

Carlson, who also does tower painting and often works 10- to 12-hour days, later will apply the bridge’s trademark color — green.

“Look at that view!” he said, looking over the side of the bridge and to the east toward the Camden County side of the river and its marine terminals, buildings, towns and greenery for quite a distance, adding, “It’s especially beautiful from the top of the tower.”

“There are a lot of risks in this job, but I don’t think about it — and I like the money. Safety becomes second nature,” he said, “and as long as I get home to see my family, the day was OK.”

A labor force of between 65 and 75 works on the bridge every day but Sunday.

The painters and riggers are from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades— both District Council 711 of New Jersey and District Council 21, Local 2011 of Philadelphia. The ironworkers are members of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental, and Reinforcing Ironworkers and from both Ironworkers Local 399 in Westville and 401 in Philadelphia.

The repainting project requires use of air compressors and an abrasive material to blast  the bridge steel, some of which had become rusted or corroded with road salt and dirt, spraying three coats of paint that meet federal standards and touch-up painting of small areas using the same type of paint rollers consumers buy at a hardware store.

The Delaware River Port Authority originally awarded a $56 million, three-year contract in 2015 to paint the main part of the span from tower to tower and its side spans, which represent a distance of less than a mile on the nearly two-mile long bridge roadway with approach ways.

During the blasting and painting process, the contractor discovered deterioration of more  steel gusset plates than were covered by the initial contract. They connect the vertical and angled steel support columns that strengthen the bridge deck underneath the roadway.

“The gusset plates are accessible from the long underside of the platform that has been erected for the painting project, so it made sense to replace them now while we had ccess,” DRPA Chief Engineer Michael Venuto said during a tour of the project.

Consequently, the authority authorized spending another $6 million to replace 74 of the several hundred gusset plates, bringing the total bridge contract to $62 million.

"It’s the largest bridge painting contract we have ever had,” said engineer David Hatherhill, president of industrial painting corporation Corcon of Lowellville, Ohio.

He is on the job site most days, as is Kevin Keith of JMT of Philadelphia, the project management engineering firm overseeing the contractor’s work.

“The job is going well and we’re a little ahead of schedule,” Keith said. “The top side of the bridge will be finished by winter and we’re on target to finish by June.

The Pennsylvania tower is nearing completion with only touch-up work left. The Jersey tower is finished.

Venuto said the project is nearly 80 percent complete.

The work next year will be done on the bridge’s underside from the work platform erected under the roadway.

Leme is planning a higher adventure soon, but in his free time and away from the job. He and his son will be going up higher than the bridge when they skydive from a plane.

Asked about the risk that his parachute may not open, he gave a quick answer.

“If I fall from the sky, at least I’ll die happy.”

Carol Comegno; (856) 486-2473; ccomegno@gannettnj.com