Commissioners consider Kimball County roads and bridges

Kimball County Commissioners held a public hearing to receive comments about the proposed One and Six Year Road Improvement Program during their regular meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 7.

With no comments from the public, after some additional discussion with Dave Hottell, County Highway Superintendent and assistant Randy Bymer, the board closed the hearing and approved the plan that would work towards replacing many of the old and inadequate culverts throughout the county, among other plans.

During Hottell’s monthly road department report, a lengthy discussion concerning the State of Nebraska Department of Roads (NDOR) “County Bridge Match Program” was held. According to the NDOR website, the program was created to “create a process that empowers and encourages local partnerships in order to promote innovative solutions and streamline repairs and replacement of deficient bridges in Nebraska’s county road system.”

The program, available to any county in the state, allows each county to maintain all control of consultants and contractors and offers approximately $40 million statewide. According to Hottell, Kimball has a few possible bridges that may qualify. The issue was added to the Feb. 21 agenda to be discussed further.

Discussion ensued regarding a County Highway Department mechanic and the matter was tabled, indefinitely, as the cost of hiring a licensed and qualified mechanic exceeded the average cost of labor paid by the county for the past several years.

Options of how to salvage the county road north and south of Dix were also broached. Dan Osborne, of TopKote, Inc. met with the board to discuss the the seven mile stretch south and two miles north of the village.

According to Osborne, the roads are still salvageable, but if the county waits any longer, the ability to save them will be lost. If the county does continue to wait, the cost of complete replacement could cost anywhere from five to six million dollars.

However, not all nine miles may need to be repaired right away. The seven miles south of Dix need to be addressed first with the two miles north of town to be postponed a bit longer.

Osborne suggested that to save the road, two layers of oil and aggregate could be added this summer at a cost of $64,530 per mile. This cost does not include the gravel, which he has estimated at 168 ton per mile for a cost of $48,384 that would include two layers on all nine miles. Total cost would be just over $500,000 to prevent the road from complete ruin.

That is not the end of the repair and cost, however, as another layer of oil and aggregate would need to top the road a year later. These two consecutive annual repairs would then take care of the road for another four years.

Legal council for the board, Matt Turman, told the commissioners that any road work would need to be placed for public bid. Larry Engstrom thanked Osborne for his time and the board agreed to take the information into consideration and tabled it until another meeting.