L&C County debuts Dalton Bridge website

Lewis and Clark County Public Works unveiled a new website last week aimed at keeping the public informed about efforts to upgrade the Dalton Mountain Road Bridge.

The website, lewisandclarkcountyinfrastructure.com, is part of the effort to secure grant funding through the Treasure State Endowment Program to replace the 60-year-old timber bridge.

"It's kind of a nice deal really. It's the first time we've used a website for a TSEP project," Lewis and Clark County Director of Public Works Eric Griffin told the BVD.

TSEP helps local governments fund bridge improvements and the Dalton Mountain Road Bridge became a priority last year when it was closed for a little more than a month after worse-than-expected decay was found in the wooden piles. The bridge was stabilized and re-opened in September as a one-lane bridge with a 10-ton weight limit.

The new website provides interested parties with access to project documents, information on the project's background, funding information, and an estimated schedule. It also allows people to comment on the project, which Griffin said is key to the TSEP grant application.

"Comments are important. We set this up because the more public outreach we do, the higher we score for the application for these grants," Griffin said.

The website was set up with the help Great West Engineering, Inc., which is preparing the required Preliminary Engineering Report for the TSEP application. The PER allows TSEP grantors to evaluate the need for the project and its eligibility for funding.

TSEP projects are funded by the Montana Legislature every two years. Due to the legislative schedule, the deadline for the next round of TSEP grants is this June. Griffin said the Dalton bridge will be the only bridge construction grant the county requests during this cycle.

"We're moving forward with the grant application for Dalton Mountain. Dalton is the priority," he said. However, they won't find out if the bridge made the cut for funding until May of 2019. If approved, construction of a new bridge isn't expected until 2020.

Although Dalton is a priority, Griffin said the county has to take on a bridge project in Augusta this year. The county put in for TSEP funding for three small bridges in the Elk Creek area during the 2017 round of grant funding. Although they were "on the bubble" for funding, Griffin said they have to move forward regardless, since they provide the only way in or out of the area and are near failing. He said it's actually a relatively small project.

"(They're) not even in the same category as Dalton," he said.