State offers to help replace bridge

Nevada Daily Mail

The Missouri Department of Conservation is working to give fish in Little Drywood Creek a more swimmingly downstream passage.

The department has offered to work with the Vernon County Commission on a water crossing replacement project in an effort to incorporate fish and sediment passage. The current crossing on Stokes Road over the Little Drywood Creek has some structural issues and is in need of replacement. The Conservation Department saw the replacement as an opportunity to improve creek conditions.

Tom Prisendorf, a fisheries management biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, met with commissioners last week to discuss the crossing replacement. He told the trio that the department could contribute up to $40,000 for the project.

The conservation department has contributed to similar projects; the draft agreement Prisendorf presented to the commission was based on several successful projects in Hickory County.

"They've been doing these kinds of things, and it has been working," he said.

With the fund contribution, the conservation department would be included in the planning process to ensure the project would facilitate wildlife while still being safe for traffic use.

The Stokes Road water crossing would be funded with partial Softmatch credits and federal funding, as well as conservations funds, costing the county little to no funds. On Wednesday, Prisendorf told commissioners he was concerned with the construction timeline because conservation funds must be distributed before June 30, 2015, or risk the possibility of being lost. With similar projects, the conservation department did not hand over funds until the project was completed, which could be problematic if the bridge isn't finished before next summer.

Commissioners Neal Gerster and Bonnie McCord told Prisendorf that recent county bridge replacements have taken about 18 months from start to finish, but a Department of Natural Resources request to first survey the area for any archaeological significance could delay the project for an unknown amout of time.

Gerster said he was unsure as to why the area was selected for survey, and that he didn't know how long an initial survey would delay the project. In a worst-case scenario, he said, state archaeologists would find something significant and the project could be delayed indefinitely.

"It could be done in 13 months granted we don't hit snags," Angelo Mannino, an engineer with Cook, Flatt & Strobel Engineers, said, but suggested 18 months is the most likely scenario.

Prisendorf told engineers and the commission that he would further discuss how funding could be used, and possibly held, for the project.

Travis Rapp, an engineer with Cook, Flatt & Strobel Engineers, told Prisendorf and the commissioners that the project, which is still in planning stages with surveys recently completed, will focus on restoring the area around the creek.

"We'll probably have to build the berm up," he said. "After a couple of years, you probably won't be able to tell the crossing was there."

Rapp said protecting the bank was important in making sure the abutments, the area bridge ends rest on, does not erode.

How exactly the crossing will look, and how large it will be depends on area and waterway surveys. A span bridge, which gives water a large area to easily pass underneath, is in the plans, though how many columns are needed has yet to be determined.

Mannino told commissioners that the more columns needed for the bridge, the more maintenance would be required to keep the bridge free of debris.

"Every column you put in is a trash collector," he said.

Little Drywood Creek is one of nine problematic waterways listed on the Department of Natural Resources Impaired Waters List. Listed in 2006, the creek was determined to have a low dissolved oxygen level, making it uninhabitable for some water wildlife that require high oxygen levels. According to a Department of Natural Resources report, it is unknown why the oxygen levels are so low.