Supervisors say state structures remain open despite flaws
Standing under a state-maintained bridge on Mississippi 198, District 4 Supervisor Raymon Rowell pointed out damaged pilings and other flaws.
It’s one of two heavily traveled structures that lead to U.S. 98 from South High School Avenue, and county officials say both are in terrible shape.
“I don’t have a bridge that is as bad as this one,” Rowell said. “Jeff (Dungan of Dungan Engineering) inspected our bridges every year. If I would have had something that bad, he would have come to me and told me that we need to do something to the pilings.”
After being told to shut down multiple county bridges, Marion County supervisors say they are concerned that state bridges are unsafe yet remain open. The state has plans to replace the bridges on 198 with construction tentatively planned for 2020, according to Mississippi Department of Transportation plans.
But counties have faced a more immediate threat of bridge closures. Federal inspectors have been checking wood-pile bridges throughout the state and have ordered many to be shut down immediately.
“We’ve got a bridge that due to the fact that it is a state bridge is not under the inspection, but it’s worse than any bridge we have that’s closed,” District 2 Supervisor Terry Broome said, referring to one of the bridges on 198.
Rowell said he is hopeful that the Board of Supervisors and other officials will be able to communicate their concerns to MDOT.
“I don’t think it’s fair for them to hold us to their regulations and then they not do it themselves,” Rowell said. “This bridge has a lot of traffic. I’ve got pilings that are in much better shape than these that they are saying are not good.”
Jordan Whittington, MDOT’s resident engineer in Marion County, said the agency has plans for the two bridges supervisors are concerned about.
“It’s on the list to be done,” he said. “Those bridges will be replaced. They are not on the schedule for this year. We’re not sure when it will happen.”
According to an MDOT plan, land acquisition ahead of the bridge replacements is to begin this year to obtain rights-of-way. The plan shows preliminary work being completed in 2019 and construction in 2020.
“We braced the bridges on 198 about five years ago,” Whittington said. “This was done until we can get them fully replaced. When we replace them, we’re probably going to redo the intersection at U.S. 98. It is in the planning phases now.”
Rowell said he has 12 bridges on the inspection list in his district, including three with marked weight restrictions, yet “none of my bridges are as bad as the ones we’re looking at here.”
Pilings and concrete problems on state bridges also concern Broome, who has two major bridges closed on Williamsburg Road.
He said he doesn’t dispute that the Williamsburg bridges have pilings and bulkheads that are deteriorating, but Broome said they’re not impassable. He said federal inspectors, though, refused to compromise and reduce the weight limit to 3 tons.
“I could hire a man to enforce the weight limit cheaper than I can build a detour bridge around the bridge. I could hire him for a year and not let a truck cross,” he said. “But no, we had no compromising. We had a few pilings that were bad and we had to close it. If the state is going to do this to our bridges, why not start looking at their own?”
Broome said Marion and many other counties are struggling under the burden of having to close bridges. Marion County is looking into borrowing $3 million in bond money to help replace closed and aging bridges. “I have a concern as to why our bridges are being looked at in a different point of view than the state is being looked at,” he said. “One bridge is just as important on a safety factor as another bridge, regardless of who owns it.”
Although the state bridge projects are further off, Whittington said that Marion County residents will see a great deal of paving work on several major roadways soon.
“We are scheduled to pave U.S. 98 from the new Mississippi 44 intersection to the Lamar County line,” he said. “Work on that could begin as soon as next week. We are also going to pave U.S. 98 in Columbia from the Pearl River Bridge to Woodlawn Church. That project could begin in July. We are also going to resurface Mississippi 13 from the Mississippi 35 intersection to the Jeff Davis County line.”
Pictured Above: A walk under this state bridge in Marion County shows deteriorating pilings. Supervisor Raymon Rowell, above, said supervisors are concerned about state bridges when federal inspectors are closing county bridges. Photo by Mark Rogers
