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Lemhi River Bridge on Idaho Highway 28.

Project combining 17 bridges under one contract
recognized with Excellence in Transportation
“Environmental Stewardship” award

The project which brought three districts together to combine 17 bridges under one contract, shaving considerable time off repairs and saving millions in taxpayer funds, was recognized on Dec. 12 with an ITD Excellence in Transportation award.

The project also won a President’s Transportation Award in 2018 in the Planning category from AASHTO (the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials), a national organization representing all 50 state departments of transportation, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The project also won a 2018 Excellence in Transportation Award and was selected as a 2018 Best of the Best Innovation winner.

This award was in the Environmental Stewardship category.

ITD Districts 4, 5 & 6 faced the challenge of having to obligate surplus state funds, which had to be used in a short timeframe. The districts collaborated on a design-build project to replace 17 aging bridges – they were all more than 50 years old -- in two years to bring them up to current design and safety standards. The bundled design-build approach was selected to encourage innovation, to accomplish an accelerated project timeline, and to gain efficiency by completing design and environmental clearances concurrently for multiple bridges.

“This project is a great success because of the way that the team members came together to accomplish a common goal and the partnerships that were formed with the stakeholders and agencies," said D6 Traffic/Materials Engineer Bryan Young.”

The districts created a Design-Build Team to complete survey, initial design, geotechnical surveys, and initial environmental and cultural surveys and documentation for all the bridges.

The team first met in August 2016, the contractor (Wadsworth Brothers Construction) was selected by August 2017, and environmental permitting and consultation for all bridges was completed by February 2018.

The team identified and accomplished the following environmental stewardship goals:

- Build collaborative relationships with all stakeholders to foster successful project outcomes, including the public, regulatory agencies, and the contractor
- Increase floodplain connectivity, improve aquatic habitat, and reduce flood risk in the Lemhi River Valley by increasing bridge waterway openings to bankfull width
- Comply with the extremely tight in-water work windows for construction without variance
- Minimize wetland impacts to the greatest extent possible; permit individual bridges as 17 Nationwide Permits, and implement restoration for all temporarily disturbed wetland areas
- Mitigate roadway embankment erosion near the Lemhi River Bridge at milepost 125 on ID-28 using bioengineering techniques to protect roadway integrity and improve aquatic habitat
- Include angler access pullouts where possible on ID-28 at Lemhi Bridge sites
- Provide bat-roosting habitat on bridges
- Improve wildlife habitat connectivity using the larger waterway openings at new bridges
- Meet historic mitigation requirements by building an interpretive wayside near Ovid Bridges.

The project’s environmental permitting process included coordination and consultation with following agencies: Idaho Department of Water Resources (IDWR), Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Through open collaboration with these agencies, the efficiency of the environmental process was significantly greater than if each bridge was replaced using standard procedures for individual bridge projects.

The environmental process was streamlined to just 18 months from concept to approved permits for 17 bridges. The team has maintained positive relationships with regulatory agencies, public stakeholders, and the contractor while staying on schedule and under budget for the standard cost of replacing 17 bridges. This collaborative format of “bringing stakeholders to the table” fostered trust, understanding, and open dialogue about:

- Design constraints and innovations;
- Appropriate construction methods;
- Environmental stewardship improvements, protections and monitoring needs;
- Safety considerations; and
- Ongoing maintenance demands.

This project took just over three years from start to finish, while traditional implementation would have taken up to 20 years and multitudes of personnel and financial resources to complete all 17 bridges. Construction was complete by October 31. Only a wildlife fencing change order remains. The project team evaluated wildlife collisions on ID-28 with Idaho Fish and Game along this 25 mile section and is installing Wildlife Fence on a three-mile portion to incorporate two of the new bridges to funnel animals under the roadway instead of across traffic.