An emergency declaration will allow work to begin almost immediately on a significant southern Bartholomew County river crossing.
The declaration Monday by the Bartholomew County Commissioners came two days after emergency management personnel announced that County Road 800S would be closed indefinitely between State Road 11 and U.S. 31 because of water damage to a bridge.
The declaration means the commissioners will avoid going through a lengthy bidding process to make the repairs on one of the bridges that crosses East Fork White River, just west of Azalia, commissioner Carl Lienhoop said.
“It will likely get the bridge opened three times faster,” Lienhoop said.
Commissioner Larry Kleinhenz expressed optimism that Milestone Contractors, which has been asked to begin repairs as soon as possible, can reopen 800S within six weeks.
The damage took place on the edge of a 26-foot-long bridge that spans a flooding overflow area west of the big bridge that crosses East Fork White River, county highway engineer Danny Hollander said.
An inspection indicates water got under the road as it was flooding last week, causing the ground to weaken and erode where the edge of the bridge meets the ground.
While a county highway worker was using a snow plow to clean corn stalk debris from the pavement, the plow suddenly sank into the core of the bridge abutment by about a foot, Hollander said.
Had the plow been going in the other direction, it could have dropped through the bridge deck — and the results could have been catastrophic, the highway engineer said.
Hollander estimates repair costs at around $150,000, but the commissioners said they aren’t sure how much Milestone might charge.
But Lienhoop expressed confidence that Milestone will not take advantage of the situation, adding the contractor did not gouge taxpayers under similar emergencies that arose after the June 2008 floods.
Milestone also was chosen because its engineers have already examined the damage, Lienhoop said.
Since Road 800S and Southern Crossing are the only two southern Bartholomew County roads linking State Road 11 and U.S. 31, there’s a need to take quick action, Kleinhenz said.
If the road, which carries about 2,000 vehicles a day, isn’t reopened by late May, a number of Sandcreek Township farmers will be forced to drive about eight miles out of their way during spring planting, Lienhoop said.
Although the county highway department has adequate funds, the unexpected repairs likely mean only one of four planned bridge replacements will take place this year, Hollander said.
Bridges scheduled for replacement are:
- Bridge 301 on County Road 300E over the Sydney Branch of the Flatrock River, north of St. Louis Crossing.
- Bridge 57 on Stafford Road, over Little Haw Creek.
- Bridges 188 and 189, located about 800 feet apart on County Road 400W, about a mile southwest of the Woodside Business Center.
The commissioners gave the highway department permission to begin preliminary design work on all four bridges. The decision on which project will be completed this year will be determined later date, Hollander said.
While Monday’s declaration will not qualify the county for federal emergency funds, it has the potential to bring it monies from a state disaster relief fund, Bartholomew County Emergency Management Director Shannan Hinton said.
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The final step toward creating two organizations to handle funding requests to address the area’s opioid crisis has been taken.
The Bartholomew County Commissioners gave final approval Monday to creation of a Substance Abuse Public Funding Board and the Substance Abuse Services Advisory and Accountability Committee.
As proposed by the Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress (ASAP) in Bartholomew County, funding proposals would first be heard by the committee that would include individuals known as content experts.
The committee would report its findings on each proposal to the board, which would help decide which entity could fund projects or programs before they are implemented, as well as make budgetary recommendations to elected officials on what to fund.
Now that the ASAP proposal has cleared all hurdles, all members of the board and committee are expected to be appointed within 10 days, commissioners’ chairman Larry Kleinhenz said.
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