(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson county board of supervisors today (Tues.) approved a project to replace a bridge on 160th Street with box culverts. Beck Excavating of Spirit Lake will do the work for 149,042-dollars.
County Engineer Dan Eckert described the existing bridge in that area as being structurally sound, but obsolete.
With the 35-W bridge collapse in Minneapolis still fresh on everyone’s minds, Eckert told the supervisors Dickinson county has a relatively small number of bridges compared to neighboring counties. Of the 65 bridges maintained by the county, Eckert says only five are currently rated as structurally deficient. He says weight limits have been posted for those bridges, and they are scheduled for replacement in the county’s five-year road construction plan.
When it comes to bridge inspections, Eckert says the county contracts with Calhoun-Burns of Des Moines, a firm that specializes in such work. He says bridges classified as structurally deficient or obsolete are inspected annually.
Eckert tells KUOO news there are several things that concern him with a steel deck bridge like the one on 35-W that collapsed. He says they’re subject to considerable expansion and contraction, which can cause fatigue over time. Eckert says he prefers structures with concrete beams–he says that’s typically what Dickinson county goes with.
Eckert hopes what happened in Minneapolis will serve as a wake up call to free up more state and federal money to upgrade aging bridges and infrastructure. He says here in Dickinson county, the oldest bridge foundations are still wooden, common back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.
