How are county bridges rated, repaired?

Well, it’s supposed to be a little more fair than that. County bridges are repaired based on a rating system, according to David Cox, Daviess County Associate Commissioner for District 1.

Every two years the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) sends an inspector to look over all the bridges in the county on county roads. This inspector assigns to each bridge a rating or score, with "1" being at the bottom and "100" at the top.

"We work from the bottom up," said Cox. "But there’s a bad thing, a Catch 22 when it comes to repairing a lot of these old bridges."

Cox explained that many of the bridges are structurally marginal to begin with.

"Every time we fix them up, put new board on the deck or redo a rail, we bring the bridges up on the scale. Then they’re not entitled to BRO funds."

BRO stands for Off-System Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program. It is a federal 80/20 cost share program. The county pays 20%. The county received $400,000 in off-systems money for 2011. But to qualify for the federal funds, the bridges have to fall below a certain criteria. They have to get a very bad score.

"We almost have to quit doing maintenance and let the bridges get really, really bad, to where they almost need to be closed, before they can qualify for the BRO program and we can get financial help," Cox said.

To put the rating system in perspective, the bridge on 105th street in Jefferson Township that collapsed recently under the weight of a gravel truck had a sufficiency rating of 19 at the last inspection in 2010. A note under comments read: "rotten boards."

In contrast, another bridge in the same township, this one on Major Road, received a perfect score of 100 on its last sufficiency rating in 2010. And why shouldn’t it get a high rating? It was newly constructed at a cost of $180,303.75 in BRO funding in 2001.

A chunk of that BRO federal money goes to the engineering fund, Cox said. For instance, a bridge on Harbor Road in Grand River Township has a rating of 26. The cost for BRO engineering to design the bridge by itself was $68,442.99 in 2008. That’s before any actual work even begins on the bridge.

Cox thinks the federal specifications are a case of "overkill."

"The bridges have to be elevated in case of flood, the decks have to be so wide, the shoulders have to be so far back and they have to have wider easements," he said. "The additional land for easements can be a problem because people don’t want to give up their ground."

Where bridges are not wide enough for big farm machinery to cross, the county has been putting in large tubes, or corrugated metal pipe (CMP). There is no load limit or inspections on a tube and they are maintenance free. They last about 50 years. They are relatively cheap to put in.

Well over half, probably closer to three-fourths, of all the county’s bridges have been replaced with CMP.

"There is a draw back with the tubes," Cox said. "On the bigger creeks, the tubes aren’t big enough to handle flood water. If the water goes over the road, it cuts the tube out and we lose the tube."

The Road and Bridge crew does the actual work to fix the county bridges. The crew works for the county. There is a supervisor James Lewis and four workers, Donald Ohlberg, Shannon McCrary and Dan Dilly. David Allen cuts brush for the county part-time.

Each Monday Lewis attends the meeting of the county commissioners at the courthouse. They report on inspections, discuss projects, and the commissioners hand out a work order.

"The bridge crew goes out and performs those duties," said Cox.

Among the varied duties, the crew spends a lot of time and money replacing bridge railings. These railings are dismantled and removed on purpose.

"It happens when you have a combine or a tractor with 16 foot duals needing to cross a 12 foot bridge," said Cox. "It’s been going on in this county since it’s been a county."