Sequoyah County District 1 Commissioner Ray Watts is taking steps to replace a problematic low-water bridge in the southeastern part of the county with a steel span bridge, a project that will also straighten North 4790 Road. Both the bridge replacement and the straightening of the road will better serve traffic in the area, which includes frequent usage by semi-trucks hauling corn, wheat, soybeans and other harvest from the rich bottomland along the Arkansas River.

At their regular Monday meeting last week, the commissioners approved a plan for the proposed bridge, as well as an invitation to bid on a construction proposal and contract for the 55-foot-long steel span bridge on North 4790 Road.

“That’s a farm-to-market road coming out of [Paw Paw] Bottoms,” District 1 Commissioner Ray Watts elaborated. “It’s got some old tinhorns in there now. It has been recommended by our bridge inspectors that we look at maybe replacing that thing, rather than repairing it and going through the same thing. Every time trees come through there we’re down there digging them out.

“We’ve got some [recycled] beams that the governor gave us years ago,” Watts said of the steel beams salvaged from Oklahoma City’s former Crosstown Expressway. “So we’re thinking about building our own bridge there instead of putting $120,000 into tinhorns and cement again and dealing with the same problem.”

Engineer Monty Proctor with the Eastern Oklahoma Circuit Engineering District detailed the area in the Arkansas River floodplain where a lowwater bridge currently crosses Camp Creek in far southeast Sequoyah County, about 1.25 miles south of Old Highway 64.

“This is in the floodplain that was underwater during the flooding of 2019. Like the commissioner said, it’s best to just open the waterway up and allow the debris to flow through on out to the river. It’s actually the last crossing on this stream before it hits the river, so that was our recommendation. [The current bridge] has damage in it that it sustained from the May floods of 2022,” Proctor explained.

“It’s not a CIRB (County Improvements for Roads and Bridges) project or a BR project,” Watts added. “It’ll come out of my [commissioner’s] account here. It’s just one of those deals that I don’t wanna wait. Nothing small comes over it, it’s all semi loads of corn, wheat, soybeans.”

Proctor said 4790 Road currently jogs where it crosses the creek, and when the new bridge is erected, the roadway will be straightened so that the road will be a straight north-south artery. He also advised that to correct the current 45-degree skew — “quite an extreme skewing” — the bridge will require additional superstructure with “an additional 3,000 lbs. worth of steel in this thing for bracing to allow it to weather that floodplain.”

Watts said straightening the section-line road is a good thing for those who use 4790 Road.

Proctor said his office is accepting sealed bids, and that plans and specifications are available through his office.

Speed limit lowered

The commissioners also approved lowering the speed limit on 4490 Road (Ridge Route Road) from 45 mph to 25 mph.

“It’s grown so much up there, it’s just pushed the houses right up against the road,” District 2 Commissioner Beau Burlison said of the thoroughfare on the southeast edge of Lake Tenkiller. “It’s growing up there like crazy. There’s a lot of people coming in — kids, air B&Bs, everything like that — visiting, so if we can get people to slow down through there, I think it would be wise on our part and safe for the people that are up there.”

“I want to say thank you from the fire department,” said Heath Orabanec, fire chief for Sequoyah County Rural Fire Protection District #1. “That’s a treacherous road.”

Roads reopen

Burlison said Indian Road reopened at 7 a.m. last Monday, and noted “there are a few odds and ends they’ve got to finish up up there, but people are gonna be able to go to school, go to college. There’s kids that live in Keys and there are kids that live in Gore that are on both sides of that.”

Burlison said he was at Indian Road when it reopened, and several motorists paused to express their gratitude for the expeditious work to complete the emergency repairs.

“You need to be commended for the job you did there,” District 3 Commissioner Jim Rogers told Burlison. “You had to hustle around — when you don’t have monies in place and you’re out there doing whatever you can to get that done. He’s thanking everybody else, but he needs to be commended.”

Burlison reminded the commissioners that the repairs were accomplished through the assistance of the Corps of Engineers, the Cherokee Nation and commissioners from Cherokee County, as well as Robinson Construction and Bronze Oak Construction Company.

Rogers also announced that Central Road (4670 Road) “should open up this week” south of 1070 Road. “They actually got the asphalt laid, they’re doing the aprons and little side jobs. Hopefully, if the weather holds off, they’ll get the striping and some guardrail up.”

Other business

The commissioners approved:

• The Rural Economic Action Plan (REAP) contract closeout certification for District 2, which received the $100,000 grant for 2023. The funds, which were through the Eastern Oklahoma Development District (EODD) were used to asphalt some roads in District 2.

• The county serving as the passthru recipient of Cherokee Nation funding for the Garvin Branch bridge project in the amount of $2,069,482.63. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation has oversight of the process and function, and ODOT will be reimbursed for the project.

• Declaring as surplus for the county clerk’s office a scanner, two computer towers, a laptop computer, a vacuum and an office chair. The items are expected to be discarded as trash.

The commissioners meet at 10 a.m. Mondays at the county courthouse.