ABOVE: This bridge, on the outskirts of Fox Lake Township and crossing Elm Creek, is currently closed due to its deterioration and is the first of 10 that will be replaced before the beginning of next winter.

FAIRMONT – With both current and new funding sources coming, the Martin County Highway Department is dedicated to keeping Martin County’s bridges in check.

There are currently 182 bridges throughout Martin County. Martin County Engineer Kevin Peyman said this is under the state’s definition of a bridge being 10 feet or longer. This includes small-span bridges like box culverts that Peyman said people may not think of when they hear bridge.

The highway department’s job is to maintain, repair and replace bridges as needed when funding is available. They are not responsible for highways or interstates, as that is MnDOT’s job, and inside a city is that city’s responsibility.

By keeping these bridges up to code, Peyman said they help facilitate key travel in Martin County.

“We are a very agricultural-based economy,” he said. “Most of the businesses that we’ve seen expand or be new, a lot of them have some agricultural backbone. For an agricultural business, generally, they’re going to need roads and bridges that can haul legal weight loads. If our roads and bridges are posted down, that makes it harder for agricultural businesses to survive.”

Posting refers to limiting the weight a vehicle can carry across a given road or bridge safely. If a road or bridge is posted down, it means its weight limit has decreased. Farmers used to hauling heavier loads would either have to make more trips or break the limit and risk consequences from a crash or being caught.

To qualify for funding, Peyman said the bridge’s issue has to meet one of two criteria.

“It can either be structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,” he said. “Most that we are replacing, they’re structurally deficient. You’re looking at the underlying structure of a bridge, are the pilings still sound, things like that, to be functional. Obsolete, might have a nine-year-old bridge that structurally is okay, but it may be a super narrow at a weird angle, things like that, so trucks have a hard time from a functioning standpoint, as the size of vehicles and things have changed.”

Right now, they are looking at four township bridges and six county bridges that need to be replaced. Through the renewing township bridge fund, Peyman said they received $2 million in funds to replace the four township bridges. This is an automatic fund that goes to every county at around $500,000 per county, but Martin received more due to its need.

For the county bridges, they had to submit a bond request to try to receive money from the state. They received $1 million for these six bridges. Peyman said the rest of the funding will have to come from local funding.

As for where this money will go, Peyman said safety is their top priority.

“If there’s anything that is a safety concern in jeopardy of collapsing, things like that would move to the top of the list,” he said. “Safety always takes top precedent. After that, you look at, is the bridge posted? What is it posted at? How much traffic uses that bridge? Is it 20 vehicles per day, or is it 200 vehicles per day?”

For instance, one of the 10 bridges is at the top of the county’s priority list because it is closed. A bridge near Fox Lake Township that goes over Elk Creek is currently blocked off due to its deteriorated, hazardous condition, and Peyman said they are looking to get it down and replaced as soon as possible.

Looking to the future, Peyman said a new sales tax recently passed in Martin County for the roads and bridges should be very helpful. The money collection started January 1, and Peyman said they are hoping to get close to $2 million per year to ensure bridges continue to get fixed and replaced. In doing so, it will help them catch up with the majority of counties throughout the state.

“Historically, almost 100 percent of our construction has been paid with state aid money,” he said. “It hasn’t increased a lot over the years. Rely on that, we’re stuck just doing whatever amount of money those projects can pay. At the time we passed ours, 60 counties of the 87 already did this. Most of the counties have had that funding we have not. It’s harder when other counties have that extra funding source, makes it harder to keep up.”

Testing and diagrams necessary for construction have already been completed on all 10 bridges. Bidding for who works on these projects is next. Peyman said they hope to get all 10 done by next winter.