The aging Cape Girardeau Mississippi River bridge is getting a closeup inspection of its steel superstructure this week by bridge inspectors with the Missouri Highway and Transportation Department.

A five-man crew from the department's Jefferson City office is examining the steel superstructure of the 65-year-old highway bridge to determine if there are any serious problems with the integrity of the steel beams and members that support the bridge and its floor.

They are using a self-propelled, 80-foot hydraulic lift that enables inspectors to reach the top of the superstructure.

The inspection began Monday and should be completed by Thursday. While the work is going on, traffic on the bridge is confined to one lane.

Pat Martens, field bridge inspector with the highway department in Jefferson City, said the inspection is routine and there is no reason to be concerned about the safety of the bridge.

"There is nothing structurally wrong with the bridge," Martens said Tuesday. "We've found evidence of the kind of wear and tear you'd expect to find on a 65-year-old bridge that carries an incredible amount of traffic each day."

Martens said a nationwide bridge inspection program was ordered by the federal government after the collapse several years ago of a bridge in the East when a critical steel member of its superstructure failed. Martens said all states are now required to visually inspect their bridges every two to four years for signs of failure.

Martens said inspectors here are looking for signs of fatigue to the bridge's "fracture critical steel members." He explained a fracture critical member is a part of the steel superstructure that is in tension, and, should it fail, would result in the collapse of the bridge or a significant portion of the superstructure.

"Basically, we're looking for cracks due to fatigue in the steel members, beams and metal plates, especially around rivets," he said. "If there is a crack in a tension member, it is more likely to grow. So far we have found nothing unusual except for some rust and peeling paint.

"These steel members on the bridge superstructure have such a built-in safety factor that we would be very surprised if we did find something wrong."

Martens said on a truss bridge like the one at Cape Girardeau most problems occur under the bridge floor, in the smaller steel members that support the bridge floor. He said that part of the Cape Girardeau bridge was inspected two months ago.

"We found what we figured we would find: holes in some of the steel members and a lot of rust," Martens said. Martens said the damage is caused by exposure to the elements and salt and other chemicals that wash off the bridge floor.

"For now, we'll be keeping an eye on these areas rather than do any immediate work on them," he said. "We'll look at them again in the near future and see if there has been any deterioration. Right now, we do not feel they are bad enough to warrant doing any major work."

Next year another team will inspect the bridge's massive concrete piers in the riverbed, he said. "They'll be looking for signs of any scouring around the piers on the riverbed and for any signs of undermining," said Martens. "It will be a pretty in-depth inspection."

Martens said for a bridge its age, the Cape Girardeau river bridge is one of the busiest two-lane bridges over a major waterway in the state, outside of the metro Kansas City and St. Louis areas. "The only problem with your bridge here is that it is functionally obsolete with those narrow traffic lanes," he said.

Martens said the bridge here is one of the oldest bridges over a major waterway in the state. The bridge was opened to traffic in 1926, and is older than the Mississippi and Missouri river bridges at Cairo, Chester, Washington and Hermann. He said the oldest is the Eads Bridge at St. Louis, built in the late 1800s.

The Cape Girardeau bridge is schedule to be replaced in this decade.

State officials could not say what the design life of the present Cape Girardeau bridge is. Highway and Transportation Department District 10 Engineer Bob Sfreddo said the bridge here was built privately by a toll-road authority.

"What they had in mind as far a design life, I don't know, but some of those bridges are over 100 years old," he said.