Supervisors approve Stone Bridge load test, funding from secondary Roads

     The Jones County Board of Supervisors finally approved a proposal from Origin Design for professional services for a load rating on Stone Bridge. With that approval, it was decided the not-to-exceed amount of $35,000 would come from the Secondary Roads’ budget.

     Supervisor Ned Rohwedder was unsure of whether the county could ask for Secondary Roads to cover the cost when the board passed a resolution in 2017 handing management of the bridge over to the Historic Preservation Commission.

     Supervisor Joe Oswald clarified, per County Attorney Kristofer Lyons, that the board did not need to transfer management back to Secondary Roads even if the money was coming from their budget.

     “But this is not an item they budgeted for,” argued Rohwedder.

     County Engineer Derek Snead explained to the board that his departmental budget does include a line item that a project such as load rating Stone Bridge could fall under. That line item will also be used to cover engineering costs for a new Landis Road Bridge should the project be approved through a federal grant program.

     “We didn’t plan for this rating expense to come out of that account,” noted Snead.

     He explained that the county and Secondary Roads was spending too much money on temporary repairs to Stone Bridge in the past, which was one of the reasons it was closed to traffic in 2017.

     “At that time, the goal was to save and preserve it,” he said of Historic Preservation’s motives in wanting management of the structure. “They were the best entity to preserve an historic structure.

     “But then we were pumping funds into it with temporary fixes,” he added. “We felt it got to the point where it was deteriorating further.”

     Snead said typically funding from Secondary Roads goes toward projects and are used by Secondary Road traffic. Stone Bridge was not and cannot be utilized by such traffic.

     “We hope we don’t have any more Secondary Road funds going toward a bridge that’s not on our Secondary Road system,” reiterated Snead.

     He said some of his department’s money has also gone toward the new trail system in Anamosa.

     “Some counties do spend money on trails,” said Snead. “But we need to discuss funding for an historic bridge because that money is needed in so many other areas of our road system.”

     Rohwedder asked Snead and Assistant Engineer Todd Postel if they had enough to cover the load rating. Snead said he budgeted for an excess amount because of the potential for the Landis Bridge project.

     “There’s a good likelihood we can pay for this without a budget amendment,” offered Postel.

     Snead should find out in September whether the Landis project is successful or not for federal funding. If so, he plans to expedite that project ahead of Stone Bridge.

     “I’d like us to discuss what our goals are for long-term (with Stone Bridge),” said Rohwedder. “The load testing will find out how much the bridge can support. Is our goal for pedestrian traffic? Bikes? ATVs? Are we going to proceed to open it back up to vehicular traffic? It’s a different scope if we restore it back to the way it was before 2017.”

     “We need to take this one step at a time,” suggested Supervisor Jon Zirkelbach. “Let’s get through this (load rating) and then find out where we’re at.”

     “We have to start somewhere,” added Supervisor Jeff Swisher who pointed out that following the closure in 2017, Historic Preservation had plans to load test Stone Bridge. “But that was not as in-depth as what we’re doing now.”

     Postel said load rating an historic three-arch stone bridge like this takes a lot of expertise and the load test a few years ago did not work out the way the county has hoped.

     “Not a lot of people do this work,” he said. “It’s very specialized; this is an extensive project.”

     Snead said Origin should have its results back to the county two to four weeks following their work on site.

     “It depends on the availability of their consultants,” he said.