The Newton County Board of Supervisors approved a $12,600 contract with Grant Blakeney to repair the Third Avenue bridge in an effort to reopen a key throughfare in Newton.
In addition to the repairs on Third Avenue, the board approved emergency status for the bridge on Liberty Church Road allowing Supervisor Charles Godwin to work with Joe McGee Construction to get the bridge repaired.
Supervisor Kenneth Harris said the contract with Blakeney is to remove any and all remaining wood pilings.
“The contract is to replace all wood pilings and replace them with steel pilings encased in concrete,” Harris said. “Hopefully, this will get this bridge reopened.”
The City of Newton and Newton County were forced to close the bridge on Sept. 30. Before the Oct. 11 deadline, the city and county informed the state that they would be repairing the bridge.
In 2016, the Newton County Board of Supervisors approved a $203,209.67 contract from Magco Inc., from Laurel to replace wooden pilings on First, Third and Pilate avenues in Newton. After the work was completed later that year, all three bridges passed county and state inspections and were opened to traffic.
However, federal inspectors conducted inspections in 2017 and found two wooden pilings behind a bricked section underneath the Pilate Avenue bridge, forcing the closure of one lane of the bridge to traffic. Those pilings were later replaced and the bridge was completely reopened.
County Engineer Duane Stanford said in 2017 the county originally was going to replace all three bridges and he had even drawn up plans for all three bridges, but the state didn’t fund the Local System Bridge Program, which provides counties and municipalities with funding for bridge maintenance. The county only had about $200,000 to replace the pilings and a total replacement for the bridges would have cost around $450,000 at that time.
Harris did not immediately have a timeframe for when work would begin.
Liberty Church Bridge closed
Last week, Supervisor Charles Godwin announced that a bridge on Liberty Church Road was closed after it failed inspection.
Godwin said the issue with the bridge is the same as other bridges in the county, as it has wooden pilings. While state inspectors have only pointed out a few wooden pilings that are failing inspection, he wants to replace them all.
The supervisors approved an emergency declaration for the bridge repairs, and they approved Godwin to work with Joe McGee Construction on the replacement of all of wooden pilings and replace them with steel pilings. The estimated cost is around $250,000, although Godwin doesn’t have the final contract as of Tuesday morning.
“What they’re going to do is to lift the deck off the bridge and go in and replace all of the pilings with steel pilings,” Godwin said. “Hopefully, this will fix this once and for all.”
