Repairing the bridges of Decatur County
Feb. 15—GREENSBURG — In a continuing effort to address the repair and upkeep of the more than 180 bridges in Decatur County, Highway Superintendent Todd Houk recently spoke to the Decatur Commissioners and reported that his staff has been busy repairing more than 90 bridges around Decatur County that were in need of attention.
While part of his crew works to accomplish the ordinary repair of potholes on county roads, other crews continue to cut brush and conduct epoxy injections and add rip-rap (larger stones placed around bridge embankments to defray erosion) to select bridges.
As recently reported by the Daily News, the state of Indiana issued a "call for projects" earlier this month with applications due by January 31. This Preventive Maintenance Grant would allow counties to conduct repairs to the bridges that most need urgent attention.
Houk said that he had chosen 24 bridges to use the grant funds on, but due to escalating costs he had ultimately chosen to withdraw the county's application for the grant.
Saying that the original scope of the project had been reduced to just five bridges, Houk chose to withdraw from the program completely.
He said the available funding wouldn't be enough to make an impact, and wanted to assess the project after the countywide bridge study slated for this year was complete.
Every four years, Decatur County takes bid from consulting firms, awarding the lowest bidder the contract to conduct a four-year study regarding the condition of the county's bridges and then reports the findings to the state.
Decatur County has 15 to 20 percent more bridges than any of the surrounding counties, he said, and United Consulting is currently contracted to conduct the Decatur County bridge assessment.
In lieu of a major kickoff of repair, Houk reported that his crews were in-house adding stone and conducting epoxy injects to shore up the bridges needing immediate repair until 2024 Community Crossing grants monies could be enlisted for major repairs and replacements of the bridges in question.
Contact Bill Rethlake at 812-651-0876 or email bill.rethlake@greensburgdailynews.com
