Woodward, Okla. — On Monday Woodward County Commissioners received a fairly positive report on recent bridge inspections throughout the county.

However, the commissioners did learn that there are some repairs needed on a number of bridges in each of their districts.

"When you're talking about bridge inspections, there's always bad news," said Donnie Head, a manager with Circuit Engineering District #8 (CED8).  "But it's not very bad in Woodward County.   You're awful lucky to have good bridges."

In fact, of the 131 county bridges that were recently inspected throughout the county, less than 30 percent were found to need some type of repair or maintenance.

The following is a breakdown by district.

• District 1 - 47 bridges inspected,13 in need of repairs

• District 2 - 55 bridges inspected, 19 in need of repairs

• District 3 - 29 bridges inspected, 5 in need of repairs

Of the 37 bridges that were listed as needing some attention, Head said they mostly required "just minor repairs."

These minor issues range from replacing bridge end markers to filling in dirt along bridge abutments to putting chip and seal overlay on the bridge decks.  Some repair recommendations don't even have anything to do with the structure of the bridge itself, but merely entail trimming nearby trees or clearing brush and debris from under or around the bridge.

There were only 3 bridges in all that were marked as needing attention within a specified time frame of 6 months.   This included one District 1 bridge that needs some welding work done to the webs at one of the pier splices.  The other 2 involved overhead railroad crossings in District 1 and District 2 which simply need advance warning signs advising of bridge height, which was less than 14 feet in both cases.

The commissioners each met one-on-one with Head to discuss the bridges within their respective districts to better determine what the priority of repairs should be.

In addition to these individual conferences, Head also informed the board as a whole that inspections had discovered 5 bridges in District 1 and a sixth bridge in District 3, which had posted load signs that weren't necessary.

"These are bridges that are posted that do not have to be. You can take the postings down or leave them up if you want," he said.  "Because they are (rated for) 23 tons or above, and any bridge 23 tons or above do not require load posting signs."

As to why the bridges might have signs posting certain load restrictions, Head said, "they may have been posted to keep heavier traffic off, or the road was posted so the bridges are posted too."

Aside from acknowledging Head's bridge inspection reports, the county commissioners also approved invoices totaling $26,200 for payment for the inspections, which averaged out to $200 per bridge.

However, Head told commissioners that this year's inspections were completely paid for through state and federal funds.

Typically, federal Bridge Replacement (BR) funds pay for 80 percent of inspection costs, leaving counties to pay the remaining 20 percent, he said.

But "there was a state fund to pay for the 20 percent this go around," Head said.  This saved the county over $5,000 in expenses.



OTHER ACTION

In other business Monday morning, county commissioners, approved several routine items including monthly reports of county officers, blanket purchase orders, and the monthly highway expenditures for August, which came out to around $103,000 for each of the 3 county highway districts.

"That's down a little bit," Craighead said of the highway funding.

The commissioners also approved a utility permit request to allow a 1-inch water line, with 2-inch casing to cross a District 2 roadway a few miles east of Woodward, near E/W 40 and N/S 205.

"I don't know what they're going to do with it, but sounds like it might be for a stock tank," Craighead said before making the motion to approve the permit.

The county board voted to set a number of items for action at a future date.

This included bids for various road materials from 6 companies as well as bids for tires from 3 companies.  The bids are to be tabulated before being reconsidered for approval at next week's board meeting.

County commissioners also chose to wait until next week before action on revisions to the county's employee personnel policy handbook.

In making the motion to table a vote on the handbook, District 3 Commissioner Vernie Matt said he felt the commissioners needed more time to review the changes.

He said waiting another week also "gives us time to let all the county officers and officials know and see if they have any changes."

The commissioners also set a public hearing for their Aug. 27 meeting to discuss a petition from 2 property owners in Major County who are wanting to be annexed into the Quinlan Rural Water District No. 1.

A proposed extension of the countywide burn ban was dropped since any county action has been superseded by the statewide burn ban that was declared by Gov. Mary Fallin on Friday, Aug. 3.  The statewide ban will remain in effect until Fallin makes another declaration to discontinue it.