For a woebegone bridge about a mile east of Great Bend, perhaps the third time is the charm.
The Kansas Department of Transportation opened bids on Jan. 18 for a bridge replacement project on East Barton County Road. However the low bid from L&M Construction of Great Bend for $929,000 was substantially over the department’s estimate, County Engineer Barry McManaman told the County Commission Monday morning.
“This project has a long history,” McManaman said.
McManaman said the commission could bite the bullet and accept the bid. Or, it could reject it and opt instead to go back to the drawing board, have the project redesigned and rebid.
Commissioners chose the latter. Even after paying the Ellsworth engineering firm Kirkham Michael $22,000 for the new design, it would still be cheaper for the county since the new bridge would be less expensive.
Why the high bid?
Several years ago, the span was up for replacement, McManaman said. But, after $20,000 was spent for a design, it got cancelled.
Then, in 2014, the bridge came up again. This time, plans were made to replace it using a geosynthetic reinforced soil integrated bridge system.
Simply put, a GRS bridge system was supposed to take less time and money to install as the bridge is placed directly on a substructure. Rather than drilling a deep foundation and using steel pilings, a GRS bridge is built on layers of compressed concrete blocks separated by a membrane of high-tech synthetic fabric. Once these are done, the bridge deck is lowered into place.
That design cost the county another $30,000. It was anticipated the bridge would cost around $300,000, but that wasn’t the case.
“GRS has never been tried in Kansas,” McManaman said. Used in the eastern United States, the only other GRS project in this state was in Harvey County and it was also scrapped.
“It just hasn’t worked out for us,” he said. “There were a lot of complicating factors.”
Contractors who bid the job feared having to dig deeper than planned and that could cause the water table to be an issue. They were also unfamiliar with the GRS process.
Take three
It hurts, commission Chairman Jennifer Schartz said, to have spent over $70,000 “and have nothing to show for it.” When they first looked into the GRS bridge, it seemed like a good fit.
But, “you don’t have a crystal ball,” Schartz said. “I am going to apologize to the taxpayers.”
“We need this bridge,” McManaman said. And, the old concrete box structure is deteriorating and needs to be replaced.
The new design should be done in three to four months. The latest bids for this project can be let by KDOT and be eligible for FY 2017 federal funds is October, but this should happen earlier.
McManaman said the county will only be responsible for 20 percent of the bridge’s cost. Federal money will cover the rest.
