Jasper County acquires materials for bridges over Snipe Creek and Sugar Creek

Substructure packages for two bridge projects in Jasper County were approved by the board of supervisors earlier this month. And in conjunction with the already approved superstructure bids from last year, Jasper County will share the costs of one of these bridges with Marshall County.

The bridges are classified as Bridge C05 and Bridge K15. The former is located on North 115th Avenue West about 1.1 miles west of East 12th Street North and crosses Snipe Creek; the latter is located on South 36th Avenue East 0.8 miles east of Highway T-28 and crosses Sugar Creek.

County Engineer Michael Frietsch said Bridge C05 was constructed in 1921 and is currently a riveted pony truss style bridge. It is estimated to have less than six years of life left. It will be replaced with an 80-foot, single-span steel beam bridge with a reinforced poured concrete deck set over steel backwall abutments.

“We don’t really want to hang on to our riveted pony truss bridges much longer,” Frietsch said. “…Day labor will be used to construct the new bridge. The materials we’re letting locally here, and then we’re placing those under contract to keep us under the required horizontal infrastructure bid threshold.”

Currently, the limit is set at $115,000. Both of these substructure packages came in well under that threshold. The substructure package is mainly the steel backwall abutments. Jasper County already sought and approved bids from Oden Enterprises for the superstructure package for $122,364 in August 2024.

Marshall County will assume half of the costs for the Bridge C05 project.

The Jasper County Board of Supervisors moved forward with a memorandum of understanding with the neighboring county at its Feb. 4 meeting.

Frietsch said Bridge K15 was constructed in 1979 and is a steel I-beam bridge over wood backwall abutments. In 2023, its remaining life span was less than two years. It will also be replaced with an 80-foot, single-span steel beam bridge with reinforced poured concrete deck set over steel backwall abutments.

“The road, I’ll be honest, its traffic count is not very high,” Frietsch said. “But when you start looking at what routes we have from T-38 East into Poweshiek County, there’s not a lot of options … Even though it’s on a lower traffic count road, we really just need to replace (it) so we don’t cause huge detours.”

Oden Enterprises submitted the winning bids for the substructure packages for both bridges. The board of supervisors voted 3-0 to award the Bridge C05 substructure contract at $72,178.02, and award the Bridge K15 substructure package at $63,650.02.

The engineer estimated the substructure packages for both bridges to be $130,776. Two years ago, the substructure bid for Bridge S23 was at $92,733.16. Frietsch indicated that steel prices appear to be steady or trending down. Plus, soil information collected prior to bid requests helped optimize pile lengths.

The total cost for the superstructure and substructure steel for Bridge C05 is now at $194,542.70. The county allocated $30,000 for its portion of day labor work.

The total cost for the superstructure and substructure steel for Bridge K15 is now at $186,014.70. The county allocated $60,000 for day labor work.