Prices Sought For Cave Road Box Culverts

By MARK EVANS

mevans@stegenherald.com

Although the dimensions were not 100 percent what they had originally wanted. Ste. Genevieve County commissioners voted last Thursday to get price quotes from McCann Concrete on three box culverts for Cave Road.

The commissioners had wanted 20 x 20-foot spans with a five-foot height. Bobby Wooten of McCann informed them that the Dorsey, Ill. Firm has frames already prepared for 20 x 20.5-foot boxes with 4-foot-6-inch heights.

The commissioners and road and bridge foreman Scott Schmieder agreed that they could work with that. It was also agreed that this would be faster than waiting on forms to be made for the exact measurements.

Six inches or so of asphalt can be overlaid on top of the 4-foot-6 box, to level things out at five feet. Meanwhile, the six inches of additional width in spanning the creek will be no hindrance at all.

The only concern was whether the county could put off payment until the new year so the project will come out of the 2022 budget. Wooten said that would be no problem.

Three of the concrete box culverts will be involved. Two will be the aforementioned size, while a third one will be 22 x 24 feet.

It was agreed that the two smaller ones would be done at one time, later in the winter. The larger one can be done separately, perhaps around April.

“I’m satisfied we can make it work,” Presiding Commissioner Garry Nelson said. 

The commissioners, who had taken a “road trip” the previous day, to check out roads in need of work, also discussed Charter Church Road. It is high on the list of gravel roads to pave. Issues remain to be rectified, though, on widening it sufficiently. County specs require roads to be at least 20 feet wide. Parts of Charter Church are only 15 to 16 feet wide and never wider than 18 feet.

To widen it, a few large trees and hundreds of saplings must be removed.

Schmieder said his crew should be able to remove the trees.

“It’s winter time,” he said. “We could pull it off.”

SHED REPLACEMENT WOULD BE A HELP

The lot where the road and bridge shed is located also came up. The lot was configured years ago, when equipment was smaller. Today there is much wasted space on the lot that cannot be used.

A small, deteriorating shed will be torn down and replaced by a new, larger structure and set up in a more economical manner, space-wise.

Nelson called it “a pricey project.” It was agreed that bids would be solicited to remove the old structure and to design and build a new one, attached to the new shed. 

Currently, a 300 x 15-foot strip of land on one end of the property cannot be used for anything.