Jasper County to require geotechnical services for all future bridge projects

From now on, every bridge in Jasper County that needs to be repaired or reconstructed will be required to undergo geotechnical services.

Jasper County Engineer Michael Frietsch said during the Oct. 15 supervisors meeting that these services — which test soil and rock conditions — are already required with every bridge let through the Iowa Department of Transportation. But now the engineer’s office will order them for local bridge projects as well.

“Part of the reason is because the feds are starting to really ramp up what’s required for inspection requirements on our bridges,” Frietsch said. “In fact, even Calhoun-Burns is having trouble with how they’re going to inspect their bridges to a certain degree. So there’s a lot of confusion going on.”

But the county engineer fears it is only going to get worse. In the past, the federal government only asked for about a page of data, but Frietsch said they want four to five pages of data for bridge inspections. As a result, Frietsch expects to see increased bridge inspection costs moving forward.

“We’re also going to be at risk a lot more if we don’t do all the necessary steps on our bridges, whether they’re local or they’re let through the DOT,” he said. “Which basically means we’re going to need to start doing geotechnical investigation on every single bridge that we’ve been doing to get soil borings.”

Knowing the conditions of the soil and rock lets crews better understand what they are dealing with before constructing a bridge. Depending on the quality of the soil, the design of the bridge may have to change. Frietsch said his office is going to have to carefully document these conditions for federal inspectors.

“So this is really just heading off into future requirements, trying to stay ahead of the curve — stay ahead of the train before it runs us over,” Frietsch said.

From what Frietsch understood from a DOT conference in September, “no one sees any value” in what the federal government is doing. He said it is not increasing bridge safety but it is the rules the county has to abide by, especially if it wants to maintain federal eligibility for bridges.

Supervisor Brandon Talsma said, “So long story short if we want to keep getting federal funding for our bridges this is a requirement.”

“You got it,” Frietsch said. “Whether it’s FEMA or Highway Administration. And, really, honestly, at the end of the day, it actually makes good practice anyway to do it because we will be able to understand better what it is we should be doing for substructure-type design … At the end of the day, it might actually help us.”

Discussion about this topic originated over five geotechnical services agreements that appeared on the supervisors agenda for approval.

All five contracts were with Allender Butzke Engineers, and they were approved by the supervisors in a 3-0 vote. Here are the bridges approved for services:

• Bridge A08 at North 99th Avenue East in Hickory Grove Township.

• Bridge C05 at North 115th Avenue West in Malaka Township.

• Bridge H08 at North 35th Avenue West in Newton Township.

• Bridge K15 at South 36th Avenue East in Richland Township.

• Bridge L01 at South 12th Avenue East in Buena Vista Township.

Each geotechnical investigation costs $7,600. In total, the five sets of services cost Jasper County $38,000.