August 27, 2009
Bridge quandary continues, county officials await state’s recommendations
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Melea Burke/Valley Journal
Commissioner Paddy Trusler makes a point during a discussion with South County residents about the status of the South Valley Creek Road bridge.
By Melea Burke
Valley Journal
Lake County Commissioners are still waiting for a report from state bridge inspectors before they decide whether to repair or close the South Valley Creek Bridge, commission chairman Paddy Trusler said Tuesday.
Kent Barnes, state bridge engineer with the Montana Department of Transportation, and Doug Moeller, MDT’s Missoula District Administrator, inspected the bridge last week, Trusler said, and now he’s waiting for their recommendation on whether or not temporary repairs to the structure to allow for normal vehicular traffic would be cost-effective.
“What we’re waiting for right now is the report from the state as to what their recommendation would be to get that bridge to 10 tons,” Trusler said in a meeting with South Valley Creek residents Monday. “What I’m really interested in is ‘What is the state willing to certify?’ If we don’t have the information, I’m not inclined to close the bridge on the 30th (of August), but I’m not going to wait six months.”
County officials ordered the South Valley Creek Bridge, which has spanned the Jocko River north of Arlee for nearly 100 years, closed at the end of August after a 2008 MDT inspection of the bridge suggested that it had deteriorated to an unsafe point. But that decision leaves area residents up a creek, so to speak, and with limited emergency services, which they’re not happy about. Frustrations spilled over at Monday’s meeting when South Valley Creek residents learned that Commissioner Chuck Whitson had asked representatives from Stinger Welding, Inc., an Arizona-based bridge design and construction company that’s expanding to Libby, Mont., to take a look at the bridge Monday morning.
“You guys had the people from Helena and Missoula … to look at the bridge the other day, and we got a pretty good report from them — We all heard them — and then you called somebody else in to do the same thing,” Betty Schall told the commissioners. “Why? Can’t you take the state’s word for it?”
Trusler and Commissioner Chuck Whitson said they merely wanted a second opinion from Stinger, a firm of “bridge experts” that, in the event that the county either repairs the bridge or eventually builds a new bridge, could help with the design. But that explanation didn’t sit well with local residents, who pointed out that people who make money from building new bridges aren’t likely to offer alternate solutions to the South Valley Creek Bridge problem.
“He’s trying to sell a bridge,” architect Jay Kirby said of Stinger’s president Carl Douglas.
“If you want to blame somebody, blame me, because I’m the one who asked (Stinger) to come down here,” Whitson responded. “If we had wanted to close the bridge, we certainly wouldn’t have asked these guys to come down here and look at the bridge. They’re not here to try and sell us a new bridge.”
“We didn’t even know it was being closed when we walked up to the bridge today,” Douglas added. “I think what (the commissioners) are trying to do is find a Band-Aid for you guys.”
That wouldn’t be necessary if the bridge had been properly maintained, Schall claimed.
“If the county commissioners had taken care of our bridge in the south end of this county, like they do at the north end, we wouldn’t have this problem,” she said. “And then you want us to drive around … 6 or 7 miles … on that washboardy, dusty (North Valley Creek) road. No, I’ll stay home until hell freezes over.”
Although Trusler said the locals’ cold reception of the Stinger Welding detachment “wasn’t fair,” he also noted that, “it’s always better to know what people are thinking than to hear about what they’re thinking.”
“We will not close that bridge until we have one more public meeting,” Trusler said before closing the meeting. “That commitment is made.”
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