August 20, 2009
County reexamines South Valley Creek Bridge options
Melea Burke/Valley Journal
A reevaluation of the South Valley Creek Bridge by MDT is hoped to perhaps identify some repair solutions that might provide some limited traffic until the bridge can be replaced in the long-term.
By Melea Burke
Valley Journal
The South Valley Creek Bridge will still close Aug. 31, but it may be a temporary closure.
Following an Aug. 12 meeting at the Lake County Courthouse with a group of concerned South Valley Creek residents, Lake County Commissioner Paddy Trusler agreed to look into the possibility of making temporary repairs to the bridge to keep it open until it can be replaced with a new bridge.
Last year, an Montana Department of Transportation bridge inspector recommended the bridge for closure, and a recent decision by the Lake County Commissioners to follow through with that has been the subject of much controversy over the last few weeks. At the request of the commissioners, MDT inspected the bridge again Wednesday, and depending on the details of the reevaluation, Lake County may be able to fix the bridge to allow for an 8 or 10-ton load limit.
“We’re trying to get to a standard that will allow for normal vehicular traffic,” Trusler explained.
If MDT says the bridge can be repaired temporarily, and the cost to do so is affordable, the closure on Aug. 31 could be just a temporary one, Trusler said. But the bridge would still need to be replaced long-term.
“We do not consider this a fix … We consider this more or less an interim solution,” Trusler said.
At the Aug. 12 meeting, Trusler told area residents that even if the bridge can be repaired, keeping heavy loads off of it still presents a major problem.
“That’s a key; there’s no question,” Trusler said. “Our big problem here is, if we go ahead and do the fix, how are we going to make sure that (heavy vehicle) use isn’t going to damage the integrity of the bridge?”
Several residents offered suggestions of how to keep loads heavier than 8 tons, if that’s the weight limit the bridge is repaired to take, from crossing. Restricting vehicle height with bars mounted on the trusses at either end of the bridge would keep many large vehicles like dump trucks and tractor-trailer rigs off the bridge, but it’s still possible to overload a pickup truck and cattle trailer, one resident pointed out.
When asked why the county didn’t maintain the bridge to keep from having to close it, Trusler said increased heavy use in recent years has caused the bridge’s rapid demise.
“The bridge has deteriorated in the last two years more than it has in the last 20,” he said.
Trusler reaffirmed that the commissioners’ concern and reason for closing the bridge is “public safety and also liability.”
“Lake County is put in a very precarious position here,” he explained.
Of course, residents feel that they are the ones in danger since emergency services to the area have been restricted since March due to the lower load limit imposed on the bridge.
“That’s our concern…not necessarily that the commission is in a precarious position, but that we are, that the residents there are,” Tracey Morin said. “We didn’t realize that we didn’t have emergency service.”
Another concern residents have is taking North Valley Creek Road, a narrow, winding gravel road with several blind corners, to access U.S. Highway 93 when the South Valley Creek Bridge closes. Residents say the road is in poor condition, and increased traffic will only worsen matters.
“I’ll sit up there and rot before I drive over that road that you guys never maintain,” Betty Schall told Trusler.
Trusler agreed that the road needs work, and said North Valley Creek Road will be moved up on the county’s maintenance schedule for action once crews finish current projects.
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