Bridge To Somewhere

Courier Editor

The Valley County commissioners have awarded a contract for the construction of a new concrete bridge on Canal Road west of Glasgow. The Federal Emergency Management Agency informed the commissioners that they would pay up to $750,000 to rebuild the bridge.

The old wooden bridge over Brazil Creek was swept away by flood waters in 2011. It was built to replace the original structure that collapsed after a flood in 1947.

The county had held off on replacing this bridge because of the expected cost of construction, but with the FEMA backing they bid the project and were pleasantly surprised when a bid came in from TCA Construction of Bozeman for $450,000.

“We were really surprised and pleased,” said Commissioner Bruce Peterson. “We thought it would come in high.”

The county has already spent $50,000 to $60,000 on engineering for this project, Peterson said.

Sandy Dungan, who lives near the bridge, said she has to drive 4 extra miles on gravel roads to get to town. Farmers who have land on both sides of Brazil Creek must take their heavy equipment through town and use the Sixth Avenue bridge.

This may be the last flood assistance Valley County receives from FEMA. The agency did pay for replacement of two other bridges washed away in 2011, on Skylark Road and Cutacross Road, although their bids came in 30 percent over the engineers’ estimate, Peterson said. Extra length was added to those bridges to mitigate future flood damage. The federal government picked up the entire tab of $800,000.

The Canal Road bridge is expected to be completed by July 1, 2013.

A man looks over the edge of the broken Canal Road bridge months after the flood of 2011 washed away its wooden timbers.

File photo

The arrow on the left side of this map shows the location of the Canal Road bridge, near the road’s turnoff from Bentonite Road about 3 miles west of Glasgow.