County ponders fate of creek crossing

A culvert could replace the bridge now closed over the Beaver Creek east of Marion, but Red Willow County commissioners could also close the road and tear out the bridge.

During the commissioners' weekly meeting Monday morning, commissioners, county roads superintendent Gary Dicenta and adjacent landowners Cecil and Don Lafferty discussed a hydrology study of the bridge that was closed last summer when an inspection by the Nebraska Department of Roads revealed that two of the bridge's four floor beams are cracked and cannot be welded.

The hydrology study by Stanley Johnson of Miller & Associates Consulting Engineers indicates that replacing the bridge with either a 10-foot or 12-foot culvert would not raise the elevation of a 100-year flood by more than one foot, a designation required in a flood plain.