PENDLETON – The old viaduct is gone, but some of its parts will still serve the city.

The Pendleton Parks and Recreation Department plans to use pieces from the old bridge pedestal to create two fountains and a bench area at the foot of the Southeast 10th Street Viaduct.

“It ties the old with the new, and you are salvaging the most decorated part of the old structure,” said Pat Dunham, city parks and recreation director.

Two 4-foot-tall light pillars will be turned into fountains, and an obelisk and bridge entry piece will be combined into a bench, said Tom Hartzell, landscape designer and project manager for the Pendleton Parks and Recreation Department.

The pieces will be put in empty landscape areas around the foot of the bridge.

The recycling projects amount to about $71,000 out of $7 million worth of work on the Southeast 10th Street Viaduct.

Creating two pools for the light pillars will be the most expensive aspect of the projects, Hartzell said.

Since the light pillars already have holes drilled through the center of them, they can easily be turned into fountains, he added. The fountains will serve as focal points for people coming into Pendleton, either from Highway 11 or the Red Lion Interstate 84 exit.

Construction crews demolished another obelisk and bridge entry piece early in the project before they knew the city wanted to salvage them, Hartzell said.

The Oregon Department of Transportation originally planned to have a landscape company do the project, but the city offered its services for the same price, Hartzell said.