During the afternoon hours on Monday, the Pottawatomie County Commission and the Waubunsee County Commission met in Wamego at the K-DOT building to discuss another possible solution to repairing the bridge.
This time, representatives from Truesdell Corporation were in attendance. Before giving their presentation Mark LeMay and Kurt Clink requested a trip out to Belvue Bridge. About 25 individuals from each county gathered in vehicle and made their way to the bridge.
Once out on scene, the consultants, commissioners, and others walked the bridge, listening as a chain test was being done and as LeMay and Clink hammered spots on the bridge to get an idea of what was there.
After about an hour of moving along the bridge, feeling the vibrations as vehicles passed, the group packed up to head back to Wamego as more discussion was needed.
LeMay stated once back at the K-DOT building the Belvue Bridge looked to be a possible candidate, but they did need to get an engineering firm out to do a couple final evaluations just to be sure.
After the Truesdell representatives went through their presentation, the conversation came to cost. Clink, President of Truesdell, estimated that the engineering costs could be anywhere from $30-50,000 and that the actually overlay could be anywhere from $1.5 – 3 million dollars. This however could be to give the bridge another 10-20 years of life.
In two weeks at their next commission meeting, the representatives will be giving the Pottawatomie County Commission a better cost analysis once they actually get into talks of what needs to be done with their engineers.
During the morning hours of the Pottawatomie County Commission meeting, there were a few department updates as the Westmoreland Bridge is 13 days away from the contract end day, permit numbers are the same as last year, and flu vaccines are still being given.
The commission also heard from the Rural Water District and they signed the contract with the City of Manhattan, now it’s in the hands of the city to agree which should happen at their commission meeting Tuesday night.
Due to Veteran’s Day next Monday, the commission will be back in session on Monday, Nov 18.
