By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

County Engineer Neil Cable's report Tuesday to Saline County commissioners concerning the Brookville Road Bridge project contained good news for farmers in the Glendale area.

Work on replacing the bridge, south of Watkins Road, will be planned so it won't interfere with the wheat harvest. The work is scheduled to start in July and be done by mid-November.

The 60-year-old bridge is to be replaced at a cost of $685,714.40. It's 170 feet long and 24 feet wide; the new bridge will be 180 feet long and 32 feet wide.

That will help a lot with the size of equipment that today's farmers are using and transporting across the bridge, Cable said.

Commissioners in December voted unanimously to replace the bridge as part of a $2.67 million plan for repair of bridges and culverts through 2008.

The federal government is paying for 80 percent of the cost of replacing the Brookville Road Bridge over Mulberry Creek. That leaves the county to pay for 20 percent, which comes to about $160,000, including some contingency money for overruns, Cable said.

Four bids were opened in January for the project. The lowest, from L&M Contractors out of Great Bend, was well below a consulting engineer's estimate of $879,000, Cable said.

Why this bridge?

Commissioner Sherri Barragree asked Cable why the Brookville bridge was a priority, given that the county was previously forced to close bridges that were 100 years old, rather than replace them.

"Brookville Road is a hard-surface road and a major road on the west side of the county," he said. Hard-surface roads are treated in winter with salt, which is hard on bridge decks.

"What you see is the salt penetrating the concrete, and it starts to corrode the rebar and the deck starts coming apart," he said. "There's always the option of taking an existing bridge and trying to rehabilitate it. The problem is this one would have to be widened, and by the time we reconstructed the deck, you're going to exceed the 20 percent of replacement cost. This way, for the same cost, we get a brand-new bridge."

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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