With the addition of stout metal guardrails, construction of a new bridge spanning a creek on Stultz Road in Cass Township was recently finished.
The completion comes nearly a year after the old bridge – located off of Highway H at Elk Creek – was closed down after being condemned by the Missouri Department of Transportation due to structural concerns.
“We would like to have had it done sooner, but we were trying to save money along the way,” Cass Township board president Jack Watson said.
The old bridge was barricaded last July when it began cracking after being hit by a big washout.
“The southeast corner started dropping down, and we were afraid it was going to break and drop somebody in the creek,” Watson said. “MoDOT said ‘close it,’ so we did.”
The replacement is a concrete structure with two large water passages, and is outfitted with metal highway guardrails on each side. Watson said its final cost was about $33,000, with materials being purchased out of the township’s general funds, and labor costs and manpower being covered by the State of Missouri’s ongoing Disaster Recovery Jobs Program (DRJP) that began early last year and ends Sept. 30.
The bridge project’s concrete work was supervised by Houston resident and businessman Steve Wilson, who has a background including about 25 years in the bridge construction field and was hired as a temporary Cass employee. Wilson’s connections also allowed for the purchase of the used guardrails at a low rate.
The new structure opened for traffic early this year, and has no weight limit.
“I made sure of that with MoDOT, and they inspected it from day one,” Watson said. “We had to test every load of concrete to make sure it met their requirements.”
Watson (now in his 33rd year as Cass Township board president) said the new bridge’s price tag included engineering costs of about $7,800, but bringing in engineers made sense because Stultz Road is regularly traveled by large trucks.
“This was our first engineered job, and they drew it up and inspected it periodically,” he said. “But we had to do that to make sure we could have no load limit on it. There’s a milk truck that crosses it every day that grosses in the neighborhood of 80,000 pounds, and there are hay trucks, and big semis with cattle.
“I made sure there was no weight limit because like I told the MoDOT inspector, ‘I don’t want another Upton bridge situation on our hands.’ One in the county is enough.”
While the bridge was closed for about 11 months, a landowner in the area fixed up a detour and allowed vehicles to pass through a pasture on his land.
“We would really have been in bind without that,” Watson said.
The DJRP resulted from federal funds becoming available following the Joplin tornado of May 2011. Locally headquartered in West Plains, the program provided money and equipment for roadway improvement and debris removal.
Included in the equipment provided were dump trucks, backhoes, chippers, chainsaws and more, and funding included wages for five- or six-man crews made up of men involved in the West Plains jobs program.
Townships weren’t even required to pay a percentage —even the cost of fuel was covered.
“We’ll probably never have another deal like it,” Watson said. “I remember when (Texas County Presiding Commissioner) Fred Stenger first told me about it, I kept wondering what the catch was. But I couldn’t find any flaws in this program, outside of some extra red tape.”
Out of Texas County’s 17 townships, only nine opted to take advantage of the program. Including Cass, three still have crews at work via the program, while the other six have completed designated work.
Watson said Cass (Texas County’s third largest township, with 95.2 miles of rural roadways) was the first to begin work under the DJRP umbrella, and will be the last to wrap it up this fall.
“I’m surprised every township didn’t get involved in this,” Watson said. “I thought they all should have joined it. As elected officials, our goal is to do what we can for the people and save as much money as we can in the process. It’s been a big help.”
I made sure there was no weight limit because like I told the MoDOT inspector, ‘I don’t want another Upton bridge situation on our hands.’ One in the county is enough.”