Three county bridges to see replacement

Whitman County commissioners approved Monday the replacement of three bridges on county roads.

Bridges on the Uniontown East, Viola and Robertson roads will be replaced this summer by county crews. Altogether, the bridges are expected to cost the county more than $300,000, according to Public Works Director Mark Storey.

First on the docket is the Babinski Bridge over Union Flat Creek on Uniontown East Road. Storey said that work should begin by the first of June.

Babinski Bridge was made off limits to traffic weighing more than 30 tons in January after bridge inspectors noticed upward of 400 cracks in the foundation of the concrete span.

The 1960-vintage bridge is on a route used by grain trucks, said Storey, as an alternate connection between Idaho Highway 95 and Uniontown.

County crews will replace the bridge with a new pre-stressed concrete bridge at a cost of approximately $110,000.

Once the Babinski project is finished, crews will move to the Viola Road south of Palouse to put a new concrete span over Four Mile Creek. Known as the Tate Bridge, the new span will replace a wooden bridge. Storey estimated that replacement at $110,000.

Crews will wrap up their summer bridge work with the Fisher Bridge on the tiny dirt Robertson Road off State Route 27 south of Belmont. The bridge services only one house, but is used to access land by a number of farm operations, said Storey.

The county will replace the current wooden structure over Kelley Creek with a single steel culvert pipe at an estimated cost of $50,000.