New bridge officially opened

A new modern bridge now sits on County Road 2836 after recently completed work by the state.

“In 2007, the legislature passed Senate Bill 1888 and that funds these types of projects right here for counties,” said Shon Richardson of CEC Engineering. “It goes toward county improvements for roads and bridges.”

The bridge replacement was part of a five-year plan. The engineering firms, county commissioners and ODOT work together to get the projects done.

“There’s a lot of different phases,” Richardson said. “You have to to get right-of-way acquisitions, you have to move the fence line back and utilities and get bar ditches done. It’s all a big collaboration with different ones involved to make things happen.”

The project, which goes over a tributary of Cow Creek, took approximately 120 days and cost approximately $700,000.

It was paid for by state funds and did not cost Stephens County anything.

It was a much-needed improvement said Russell Morgan, District 3 county commissioner.

“I don’t know how many times we have been out here to fix the backup on the north end,” Morgan said. “We’d come out here and see water three feet deep on both sides of the road. With all the recent rain we had, we got a little bit of water on the south end, but everything else was flowing perfectly and we’ve got plans to fix that part.”

Cameron Nash of ODOT said everything went about as expected.

“Everything went very well in my opinion,” Nash said. “Everything went really good. We got good cooperation from the contractors and everybody out here. Compared to other projects, it went very smoothly.”