Author Topic: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?  (Read 4526 times)

Fly320s

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #25 on: February 04, 2021, 06:50:19 AM »
Have you contacted the local troll union?

I don't think his congressman can help here.
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K Frame

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #26 on: February 04, 2021, 06:53:34 AM »
  This- ^^^   No good deed goes unpunished......

Hey, one size rules fit all... right?

RIGHT?
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HankB

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #27 on: February 04, 2021, 07:44:18 AM »
I'd be wary of speaking to any goobermint drone.  You might suddenly find out you are in violation of a multitude of obscure rules and be heavily fined, have to remove the bridges, and not be allowed to replace them.
My very first thought. Even if you're trying to "do the right thing" there's still a lot of truth in the old adage that no good deed goes unpunished.

Good luck and be careful.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2021, 09:04:21 AM by HankB »
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230RN

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #28 on: February 04, 2021, 07:44:41 AM »
Have you contacted the local troll union?

Ha-ha, very good.  With all the internet usage of the term, I forgot about the Grimm's fairly tale trolls under bridges.



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Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #29 on: February 04, 2021, 08:00:59 AM »
Now you guys are starting to scare me about making phone calls.
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."

230RN

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #30 on: February 04, 2021, 08:07:18 AM »
(

What really bothers me about some of this stuff is the fines per day provisions.  Somebody else brushed on that and what it does is guarantee a settlement with the Agency since the potential fine adds up to enormous amounts.  Easy feather in the cap of the salaried Agency attorney.

Note the "salaried."

But the per diem fines are the law, so what are you gonna do?

And those half-buried cars really scare me.

I wonder how much camo tarps cost.

)

Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #31 on: February 04, 2021, 08:13:01 AM »

And those half-buried cars really scare me.
)

Because that's where the trolls live?

 =D
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."

230RN

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #32 on: February 04, 2021, 09:05:41 AM »
Because that's where the trolls live?

 =D

Nope.  See Reply #9.  The trolls live downtown.

 :mad:

MillCreek

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #33 on: February 04, 2021, 09:24:47 AM »
Now you guys are starting to scare me about making phone calls.
Just like the Israelis, they can lock onto your signal, and the next thing you hear is the hiss of a Hellfire missle reaching terminal velocity just before impact.  With any luck at all, you will be standing near the bridge and the crater ejecta will neatly fill in under the abutments.
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dogmush

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #34 on: February 04, 2021, 09:30:09 AM »
I thought the Israelis were sing Space Laser's now?

Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #35 on: February 04, 2021, 09:31:42 AM »
I thought the Israelis were sing Space Laser's now?

"Singing Space Lasers" is a band name.
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MillCreek

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #36 on: February 04, 2021, 09:45:43 AM »
_____________
Regards,
MillCreek
Snohomish County, WA  USA


Quote from: Angel Eyes on August 09, 2018, 01:56:15 AM
You are one lousy risk manager.

K Frame

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #37 on: February 04, 2021, 10:07:21 AM »
Now you guys are starting to scare me about making phone calls.

What scares you more?

Making a feeler call to the local gov about a situation that existed when you bought the property?

Or going ahead, doing the repairs on your own, then getting yourself borehogged into bankruptcy because you did the repairs improperly and without the proper permit, so now you have fines stacked on top of remediation costs on top of additional repair costs...

Or the third option, having the bridge collapse, losing access to part of your property and pissing off the powers that be because YOUR property is now blocking a waterway (see previous paragraph re: borehogging).

How does retirement in a one-room walk up apartment above a bowling alley sound because you're now bankrupt?

It's not often that I'll say this, but in this case, NOT contacting the proper governmental actors is the stupidest advice that's been given in this thread because of the potential for financially devastating consequences if you go it all hemanly and alone and *expletive deleted*it.
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Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #38 on: February 04, 2021, 11:08:54 AM »
I'm still going to call someone. I'm just wanting to be careful that I call someone who'll give me advice versus someone who'll put a "condemned" notice on my bridges. I'm just doing some local research on where to begin first.

Again, my bridges aren't ready to fall. I'll try to grab some pics and post them later. I expect my main bridge is in fine shape, and am only concerned about protecting it from erosion better on the upstream side. The downstream side looks like it's solid dirt rock all the way down and around the culvert. I don't expect even flooding would do anything to that bridge - I think it would have to be a major disaster to affect it, but I just want to be sure via an expert opinion.


The second bridge is also fine right now, especially given what I use it for, but I do see some erosion on one side that is safe for now, but I could see a problem starting to form some years down the road. Again, something I just want to get ahead of rather than repair after something happens.
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."

Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #39 on: February 04, 2021, 05:30:49 PM »
Executive summary: "Do whatever you want, just don't divert the stream flow".

Longer story: Man I love Idaho. I had some water rights paperwork I had to fill out, and rather than mailing it in, I decided to drive to the Idaho Dept of Water Resources HQ (in charge of all surface and groundwater in Idaho) in Boise and while dropping the paperwork off, take a chance on asking a gov official about the bridge thing and my water boundary in general. I went from talking to one agent to sitting in a conference room with three other people who did a whole powerpoint thing on the big screen. Apparently my particular issue was something they had discussed in a recent staff meeting. I live in what they refer to as "no man's land". I don't belong to an irrigation district, and my water is basically what they use to divert overflow from the districts back into the Boise river. They are required to keep that water flowing at all times.

Anyway, what I learned is that while I am responsible for making sure there are no blockages in the creeks, they also told me that because they are on my property, I can pretty much do what I want otherwise: fix my bridges, put new ones up, whatever. In fact their civil engineer, for erosion control on my secondary bridge, told me to just make it easy on myself and do one of the two methods mentioned here - rip rap or concrete, as that is what the state has used elsewhere. No permits required - just do it. Turned out they were jazzed to have a real world case scenario.

I asked if I had to worry about some fed.gov jackass coming out and fining me. He said they consider my area "no man's land" as well (for now, anyway) and I am well off their radar. Just as a backup, I also called the girl at NRCS who comes out to my place for habitat study, because I'm additionally removing some streamside trees that are growing at an angle and encroaching on my neighbor's water pump. Also no problem, and she in fact thanked me for doing it because the trees are Russian olives and they want them gone anyway and are asking me to plant willows in their place. She also said no problems on bridge work.

I don't think I would have gotten the same answers back in CA. Anyway, below are the images of the bridges. The first one is my main bridge, and you can see one side is pretty much all solid, while the upstream side has been going through a bit of erosion. I'm calling a civil engineer on that one.  I was thinking something like rebar and concrete up to the bottom of the bridge, angled to deflect water versus taking it head on, but we'll see what the engineer says. At full flow, the water is maybe 6" over the culvert pipe (I marked high water points last season). On the second bridge, you can kinda see the lack of material high up under the steel portion of the flatbed. I plan on filling that gap with riprap and/or concrete, and bringing it down the sides to the water as well. At high water, the water is maybe a foot below the middle of the bridge. I'm thinking about maybe putting small cinderblock diversion walls at maybe a 30deg or so angle on both upstream sides to diver water from the banks there, but I'll probably drive the engineer over there as well, just to see what he thinks.







« Last Edit: February 04, 2021, 07:59:51 PM by Ben »
"I'm a foolish old man that has been drawn into a wild goose chase by a harpy in trousers and a nincompoop."

charby

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #40 on: February 04, 2021, 05:36:43 PM »
I think you had a bridge at one time, then a culvert was installed and encased in riprap & fill.
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Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #41 on: February 04, 2021, 05:38:26 PM »
I think you had a bridge at one time, then a culvert was installed and encased in riprap & fill.

Yeah, I guess that's not really a bridge.  :laugh:  More about road erosion than bridge erosion.
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Hawkmoon

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #42 on: February 04, 2021, 05:46:00 PM »
I'm glad you got some official direction.

Also, thanks for the photos. A picture is worth a thousand words. Your first bridge is not a "bridge" -- it's a drainage culvert. Totally different sort of thing. Yes, rip-rap on the two upstream flanks is the way to go.
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K Frame

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #43 on: February 05, 2021, 06:59:25 AM »
Glad that you got the answers that you did. That really cuts down on the possibility for an OH *expletive deleted*it moment later on.

Of course, now that you've contacted the gubmint... YOU'RE ON THE RADAR, MAN! YOU'RE ON THE RADAR!  :rofl:
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Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #44 on: March 10, 2021, 06:17:38 PM »
So an update in case anyone is interested.

I had called a civil engineer, but then he told me I needed a structural engineer. The structural engineer was out today for an inspection. He basically confirmed what Charby said. There used to be a wooden bridge there and it failed or was just worn out, so they just threw the culvert pipe in and filled things up, leaving the old bridge there as part of the fill.

The problem with that, according to the engineer, was that it did not allow them to get as good of compaction as they should.  He was able to tell because when he was crawling through the pipe, he saw that the top was bowed down some. Not enough to warrant replacement, but apparently that's a sign that there wasn't enough pressure on the sides of the pipe to keep it completely circular.

He said it can actually be repaired vs replaced and get me another 20-30 years out of it. The downstream side is actually fine. The upstream side will need some kind of wire mesh for concrete, then angled forms put in, then some steel rammed into the ground, then concrete poured in to create a steep slope running up from the streambed to the top of the bridge.

I probably didn't explain some of that exactly right, but he's writing up a report with instructions for the contractor. Now it will be a race to see if I can get a contractor out before the irrigation districts turn their water on. If not, I'll need to wait until next October.
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Cliffh

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #45 on: March 10, 2021, 06:29:36 PM »
You 'xplained it well enough I know what you're talking about.  I'll be doing the same sometime in the future.  The culvert pipe they used was too small in diameter and placed way too low in the culvert.  And they didn't put anything on the upstream side, just bare dirt.

Plan is to go from the 12" dia. pipe to at least 18", lengthen it to at least 12' (wider drive) and raise the bottom of the pipe about 24".  Right now, the bottom of the culvert is about 4' below the level of the drive, raising the pipe will allow me to fill in the deepest part of the culvert right at the drive to where it'll only be 2 1/2'- 3', which will make mowing that area a lot easier/safer.  And then cover the upstream side like you're planning.  Got a cement mixer, that'll make life easier.

How thick (at the thinnest part) did he suggest pouring the concrete?

Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #46 on: March 10, 2021, 07:07:38 PM »
How thick (at the thinnest part) did he suggest pouring the concrete?

He didn't tell me, but when he sends me the report, I'll let you know the particulars.

I'm lucky that this pipe is 48", so plenty of volume. He told me to cut off that broken part sticking out and square off the opening. I wish my pipe was set just a foot higher. That would leave me a pool of water there to run the ag pump from for putting water in the pond or flooding one of the pastures for geese in the Winter. Right now my pump inlet opening is totally exposed. I have stuck a 12" high piece of plywood in front of the pipe before in the off season to temporarily dam it and raise the water level, but that's a bitch to remove.  :laugh:
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Cliffh

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #47 on: March 10, 2021, 07:34:43 PM »
Yeah, I don't need anywhere near a 48" pipe, all I have to deal with is rain runoff. 

The pipe down the block under the street is 48", but it handles the runoff from both directions on the street (it's at the low point of ~1mi of road) and the "seasonal" creek across our property from the street behind.  It's only flooded the street a couple of times, before the neighbor across the street finally lowered the level of his pond so there wasn't already a foot of water in the pipe.

Can't you dig a small-ish area on either side of the drive as a holding pond for the pump?

Ben

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #48 on: March 10, 2021, 09:09:10 PM »

Can't you dig a small-ish area on either side of the drive as a holding pond for the pump?

The problem is, and it's hard to tell from the photo, is that it would require moving the pump. That concrete cylinder partially shown on the right side is where the pump sits. The other side of it is much higher ground. It would actually be easier to dig the streambed deeper at the pump and then drop the inlet a little, but I'm afraid that would end up with somebody calling the Army Corp of Engineers, and the next thing you know, I'll be getting some kind of $100,000/day fine over something or other.  =)
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Cliffh

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Re: Who Would I call to Work on a Private Bridge?
« Reply #49 on: March 10, 2021, 09:31:48 PM »
True, messing around with the waterways can get "troublesome". =)