Supervisors authorize soil borings for bridge along F-17 over Rock Creek

Jasper County has been forced to focus its efforts on replacing bridges located along paved farm-to-market routes, and as a result county engineer Michael Frietsch on Dec. 12 requested soil borings of one such structure and informed the board of supervisors that a number of other bridges may need to be addressed.

“We’ve got bridge A11 that we’ve got to replace, which is on F-17 West of Newburg up there in the northeast corner. We’ve got S07 I believe is the other one that we gotta replace that’s over there on F-62 down there by Sully … Then there’s one I believe on F-36,” Frietsch said.

The bridge is a continuous steel I-beam bridge, and it was originally built in 1963. Frietsch said its biggest issue is the deck, based on the inspections.

“It’s got undermining going on with its substructure as well,” Frietsch said.

Jasper County Supervisor Brandon Talsma asked Frietsch what the point of the soil borings was. Frietsch said it helps the engineer’s office better understand what it needs to do as far as abutments go, serving as prep work before the bridge is ultimately replaced. He estimated it would take a year before it is let.

“I would think this A11 here we would put this on the FY25 program for FY25 letting,” Frietsch said of the engineer’s five-year plan. “It will be letting probably towards the January 2025 letting, somewhere in there, February (2025) … There is going to be quite a bit of bridge swapping.”

In addition to replacing farm-to-market bridges on paved routes, Frietsch said the county needs to take a serious look at any of the riveted Pony Truss bridges. There is a push to make those types of bridges historic monuments. Frietsch said Jasper County has five Pony Truss bridges. All will now have to be expedited.

“We’re going to be shuffling around our priorities as far as those bridges go,” Frietsch said before later pivoting back to bridge A11. “…We’ve got the surveying done and now we need to get the soil borings done for bridge A11. We’re looking at basically $11,200 to get the soil borings done as part of the design process.”

According to the agreement with Allender Butzke Engineers, Inc., the borings will be drilled about 80 feet deep. As part of the agreement, Allender will conduct laboratory testing of the soil borings and provide abutment slope stability analysis, along with a number of other services.

Field exploration could be scheduled to be conducted within one to two weeks of receiving authorization, weather permitting. Verbal findings and recommendations will be available to the county one week after drilling; one week after that a written report will be submitted.