County to close South Valley Creek Bridge

Melea Burke
Valley Journal
ARLEE — It was a bridge well travelled for generations, a pathway across the Jocko River that has so far survived the test of time. But time and budget priorities are about to take their toll.
Starting Aug. 31, residents of South Valley Creek Road north of Arlee will have to take a new route to access U.S. Highway 93. Lake County is closing the century-old South Valley Creek Bridge after a Montana Department of Transportation bridge inspector advised that the bridge is unsafe.
“The information that was given definitely implied that we needed to do something with the bridge,” Lake County Commissioner Paddy Trusler said.
Unfortunately, the closure means that area residents will have to detour up to 10 miles via North Valley Creek Road, a narrow, winding gravel road, to reach Hwy. 93, making the drive to Arlee 30 minutes long for some. Needless to say, the news isn't sitting well with some of those folks.
And locals say they’ve only recently learned that emergency services to the area are restricted, too.
According to Arlee Fire Chief James Steele, the GVW (gross vehicle weight) restriction was lowered in 2006 after MDT’s bi-annual inspection, so the fire department’s Class A structure engine and Type 2 water tender could no longer cross the bridge. The last MDT bridge inspection was completed in March 2008, and after examining the issue for several months, county officials lowered the GVW to 3 tons in March 2009. The new restriction meant that no emergency vehicles, including ambulances — or the school bus — could use the South Valley Creek bridge.
In a letter describing how the fire department’s operations have been affected by the bridge’s weight limit, Steele said travel time from the Arlee Fire Hall to residents at the end of Schall Lane, Squeque Lane and Plant Lane now exceeds 21 minutes, more than double the 10 minutes needed to reach these residents via the South Valley Creek bridge.
“If we encounter worse road conditions — wash board, unplowed snow, ice — these times will increase,” Steele wrote.

But from the county’s perspective, extended emergency response times are less threatening than the prospect of a vehicle falling through the bridge, which could carry a hefty price tag and the possibility of serious injury.
“From a liability standpoint, we actually had less exposure having emergency vehicles go around (via North Valley Creek Road),” Trusler explained.
But for residents, waiting nearly half an hour for emergency services is unacceptable. Emotions ran high at a community meeting held to discuss the bridge closure Friday night at the Arlee Senior Center.
“Our concern, as people who live there, is liability for us,” Tracey Morin said.
Elderly resident Betty Schall said she would consider suing the county if emergency services to the area continue to be delayed.
“They can’t close our bridge,” Schall said. “If (the county is) liable for it, how come they didn’t come down here and repair it?”
As less than a month remains before barricades will prevent vehicles from crossing the bridge, many residents are asking that same question, among others.
According to Mike Brown, manager of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ roads program, when MDT bridge inspector Ben Williamson met with the county commissioners, he said the bridge’s sufficiency rating is so low that it would cost about as much to repair it as it would to build a new bridge. Brown said Williamson cited the bridge being cut in half when it was moved from its former location near Missoula and the strain of loads heavier than the weight limit crossing the bridge as factors in the low rating.
Local residents disagree with those assertions. Michael Spade, who lives almost at the end of the bridge, said there is no evidence to support the claim that the bridge was cut.
“The bridge is just the way it was when it was built,” he said.
Spade, a welder who has moved similar bridges in the past, said the bridge is sound, and with some maintenance, would support heavy loads for years to come.
But the county’s liability in the matter is still at the forefront of the issue, Brown said.
“Some bridge engineer is going to have to bless that bridge so the county can open the bridge back up,” Brown said.
While residents feel the closure is unnecessary and will cause undue hardship, county officials disagree. Lake County roads supervisor Larry Ehle spoke with several Valley Creek residents Monday morning at the bridge site.
“(The decision to close the bridge) wasn’t taken lightly … the general idea is to put a new bridge here,” Ehle said. “When you don’t close the road, heavy traffic still comes through, whether it’s supposed to or not. The main issue … is we don’t want anybody getting hurt.
“Inconvenience is one thing; ending up in the creek is another.”
Trusler said locals were notified of the impending closure at the end of July, after the county commissioners decided earlier this summer to close the bridge.
“We needed to know about it, and we needed to know about it a lot sooner,” Morin said.
But according to Trusler, the bridge replacement would be underway already if events had gone according to plan. This spring, Lake County received $226,000 in stimulus money that was allocated to replace the South Valley Creek bridge. County officials thought that the stimulus money would pay for “a very large portion” of the bridge replacement, Trusler noted.
“We made the Valley Creek bridge our top priority,” Trusler said.
The problem came when Brown estimated it would cost $1.2 million — more than double Lake County’s entire bridge budget — to build a new bridge with a longer span that would fulfill the tribal environmental requirements by moving the concrete abutments farther out of the river. At that point, the county commissioners reallocated the stimulus money to replace two bridges in the northern section of Lake County.
“We had to do it or lose it,” Trusler said.
At Friday’s community meeting, Brown said the estimate for the new bridge has since dropped to about $800,000. The final design, which is for a durable two-lane bridge that would support heavy loads and should last for the next 100 years, will be complete by Oct. 1, he said. What will happen then is unknown.
The county, which owns the bridge, simply doesn’t have the funds to replace it, Trusler said.
“We’re going to start buying lottery tickets,” he joked.
The bridge is, of course, on the Flathead Reservation, and CSKT has “significant interest” in the South Valley Creek bridge, Trusler said, since it provides access to tribal land and several tribal members’ homes.
“We certainly expect (the tribes’) participation … We are committed to participating to find a solution for this problem,” Trusler said.
The four tribal council members present at the community meeting Friday expressed their concern over the matter and said they do want to help solve the problem.
“I’m down here to find out how we can help … If we can help, we’ll help,” Steve Lozar said.
“It’s not our bridge, but we’re here to try to get some solutions,” Bud Moran added.
Brown explained that since the bridge is on the Bureau of Indian Affairs Indian Reservation Road Inventory, BIA road construction and bridge program funds could be used to repair or replace it. The BIA program could fund 80 percent of the cost, and the county and/or the tribes would have to come up with the remaining 20 percent. If the tribes were to apply for BIA funding, the South Valley Creek bridge would join other bridges in the Western United States on a waiting list. The worst bridges, including those recommended for closure like South Valley Creek, go to the top of the list, and each year the BIA fixes as many bridges as possible with the money available, Brown explained.
“I’m thinking it’s going to go in the pot here pretty close to the top of that fund,” Brown said.
But getting BIA funding could take up to several years, he added, leaving residents no closer to having timely emergency services and highway access until then.
The three county commissioners were not present at Friday’s meeting, since Trusler and Chuck Whitson were out of state on vacation, and Bill Barron had a sudden death in the family on Friday, commissioners’ secretary Jeanne Doepke said.
Trusler and CSKT spokesman Rob McDonald both said a meeting about the bridge involving the county commissioners and tribal council is in the works. Trusler said when that meeting happens, the group will discuss the possibility of having an independent inspection of the bridge done “to see what repairs are necessary to make it safe for emergency vehicles.”
“It is the top priority bridge in Lake County,” Trusler said.