Sunflower County Engineer Ron Cassada told the County Board of Supervisors last week the county’s infrastructure is in “a crisis.”
While the county will be able to repair and reopen some bridges, using both county funds and Local System Bridge Program money from the state, at least eight bridges will remain closed until further funding comes from the state.
A good portion of the discussion centered on obtaining the right-of-ways needed to make the necessary repairs and Cassada mentioned how that can sometimes be a long drawn out process. Attorney Johnny McWilliams said he’s been reminding the landowners that, “We’ve got 22 bridges out, so we’re going to work on the ones we can work on.”
Eight bridges are being replaced using tanker cars, which according to Cassada the county will use its crews to do the work. Three more will be replaced using LSBP money and county funds will be used on the remaining three.
For those three, on East Minot Road, Sunflower Road and North Sheffield Road they will pay concrete contractors to lift the bridge decks and replace the wood piles with concrete and then replace the deck.
For those bridges every pile has to be replaced Cassada said, because otherwise it would only be a “Band-aid fix” and the structure would still be limited to 6,000 pounds plus the other piles would soon deteriorate.
In addition, Cassada told the board that the plans to do 53 miles of road with the state-aid money is off, he made it clear that all of their four-year-road plan money would be used up just repairing five roads.
Cassada said he ran several different scenarios.
“This is as far as I can stretch the money,” he said.
Cassada had originally planned to do the 53 miles of county roads over the board’s term with the $3 million in state-aid funds that the county receives for its four-year road plan, but because of the condition of the roads, only about 16 miles can be completed.
Since state-aid money can only be used on state-aid roads, his plans are to reconstruct Fisackerly Road from U.S. 49 to the bridge because it is in such bad shape. Luckily the county can use $750,000 of federal STP money to help with that project.
Also in the plan is Sykes/Tindall Road, west of Indianola in District 2 and North Airport Road in District 5, which will be resealed.
Resealing involves conducting a base repair, leveling the sections and adding a seal coating.
Reconstructing a portion of Airport Road from the bridge area north to MS 448 may also be on the table, but Cassada and District 3 Supervisor Dennis Holmes will meet to discuss which portions of the road are worse before finalizing that intent.
And because it is in such poor condition, the 5.7-mile stretch of the Moorhead-Belzoni Road in District 1 will have to have a base repair at a projected cost of over $1 million.
“Isn’t that insane?” Cassada added.
He said he’s not programming all of the money because he doesn’t know what will happen on other jobs.
Cassada said as the conditions of the roads continue to deteriorate, it’s going to cost more and more money to fix them.
It will likely be spring before the work is done since completion will be hindered by winter weather, given that the temperatures need to be above 55 degrees for road construction work.
