County mandated to inventory, inspect smaller structures

By Kevin O’Brien

Over the next couple of years, the state of Wisconsin is requiring all municipalities and county highway departments to inventory and inspect every bridge and culvert between six and 20 feet long, with the goal of giving lawmakers an idea of how much money is needed to maintain these structures.

Marathon County highway commissioner Jim Griesbach spoke to the Infrastructure Committee at its Feb. 1 meeting about a new state mandate for structures that are not regularly inspected. As part of the 2023-2025 state budget, lawmakers allocated $12.5 million to cover the cost of cataloging and assessing road structures between 6 and 20 feet in length.

The Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) estimates that about 25,000 structures statewide fall within the height range, based on mapping data. Marathon County itself has over 2,600 structures that potentially need to be inspected, according to WisDOT data.

Griesbach said the Highway Department already inspects structures over 20 feet long on an regular basis, but many of those under 20 feet “may never have been inspected.”

“There are some very old, some very bad structures out there,” he told the committee.

The county already knows that it owns 221 structures that fall within the length requirements, but as far as the county’s 61 municipalities, Griesbach said he has “no idea what’s out there.” WisDOT will pay each municipality $100 per structure to inventory its bridges and culverts, with three options available: doing it themselves, hiring a private contractor to do it or having the Highway Department do the work.

Griesbach said the state never asked county highway departments if they have the time or resources to inventory local bridges and culverts, so he sent a letter to all of the county’s municipalities, laying out their options and explaining that his department may not have the time to do the work. He said he plans to charge the municipalities $100 plus any travel and staff time required to do the inventory. “We’re not going to eat that cost,” he said. Under the current timeline, Griesbach said the Highway Department has until March 1 to let the state know how it’s going to handle all of the required inspections, whereas the municipalities have until April 15 to tell WisDOT how they’re going to do their inventories. The deadline is Dec. 31 for the county and municipalities to complete the inventory of all their structures.

“So, by March 1, I need to tell the state if I’m going to do the inspections, without knowing what the inspection forms looks like or how many structures there are,” he said, noting that the county will get paid $350 per structure to do the inspections.

The inspections need to completed by Dec. 31, 2015, after which state lawmakers will determine how much needs to be allocated for fixing any failing structures, Griesbach said.

At this point, Griesbach said his department tentatively plans on doing the inspections itself, with possible assistance from KBIS, a firm that does bridge inspections. He said KBIS will do the inspections for $225 per structure, so the county could “make some money” by collecting the $350 from the state.

“It’s a big task that’s going to take place over the next two years,” he told supervisors. “Stay tuned for further details.”

Other business

■ ■ As part of a biannual report on ATV/ UTV activity, deputy Michael Van Offeren told the committee that deputies spent a total of 570 hours last year on ATV/UTV patrols, issuing 20 citations and 50 warnings. Six accidents were reported, with one fatality involving an elderly man who swerved to avoid hitting an animal and lost control of his vehicle. The citations included two for operating while intoxicated, one for fleeing officers and one for operating recklessly.

Griesbach said the towns of Stettin, Rib Falls, Brighton and Guenther have opened up their roads to ATV/UTVs, and they have also been permitted in parts of Rib Mountain, leaving the town of Marathon as the only one with no ATV/UTV traffic allowed. He said the county plans on opening CTH O north of CTH U, and CTH U from STH 107 to CTH O in Stettin.

■ ■ Griesbach said he’s working on a new policy for how the Highway Department handles the replacement of mailboxes taken out by snowplows. The department will not replace mailboxes unless they are directly hit by a plow blade, he noted.

“The mailbox needs to be able to handle flying snow off the plow,” he said.

If a plow does it hit a mailbox, which happens about 20 to 25 times per year, Griesbach said the department will replace it with a standard-sized metal mailbox, but it often costs the county upward of $340 for travel and manpower to install the replacements. In the future, he would like to offer an alternative option of giving homeowners a $100 gift card so they can purchase and install their own larger mailbox to accommodate package deliveries.

“It would be a savings for us if we go this route, and it’ll make a lot of people happy, because a lot of times they call because they’re not real happy that their big Rubbermaid mailbox is being replaced with a small, standard metal mailbox,” he said.

The proposed mailbox policy will be brought back to the committee in April for possible adoption by the full county board.