The Greene County Supervisors recently awarded the contract to repair the partially collapsed bridge on the Raccoon River Valley Trail.

The Supervisors approved an $850,000 bid from Dixon Construction of Correctionville, Iowa. Greene County Conservation Director Dan Towers said the engineer’s bid was $830,000, which Dixon’s bid was within 2.5-percent. Towers pointed out the contractor could be on-site by the end of February, with the anticipated completion date of July 31st.

Towers mentioned the most important aspect of the project is installing two concrete piers to support the 400-foot portion that collapsed due to ice jams from March of 2019. He described a potential huge obstacle to get that part completed.

“The biggest variable: if all of a sudden we’d have a lot of rain and a river that’s bank full, that’s obviously out of the contractor’s control. We could agree to extend that deadline (of July 31st) if that would happen.”

As a reminder, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is going to pay 75-percent, Iowa Homeland Security will pay ten-percent and Greene County is anticipated to pay the remaining 15-percent. Until the repairs are completed, trail users can travel on the Squirrel Hollow pavement to get around the closed bridge, which adds 13 additional miles to get to and from Jefferson on the trail.