The Sheep Creek Bridge has been closed for repairs this week, but will reopen March 28.

Les Payne, Cascade County public works director, said that the Montana Department of Transportation inspected the bridge last week and found one of the piles was severely decayed, a problem that wasn’t identified during last year’s inspection that also closed the bridge but for different issues.

To address the decade pile this week, Payne said that county crews spent two days on-site making repairs, which includes removing the eastside guardrail, moving it over and reattaching it in a new location, then removing the westside guardrail, moving it and reinstalling in a new location with different mounts.

Sheep Creek Bridge reopened, county working with MDT to replace bridge [2024]

The move will help keep weight off the decayed pile, Payne said.

He said the county crews worked with TD&H Engineering to develop a repair design and once the work was done, TD&H inspected the work and signed off on the repairs. On March 26, Payne submitted photos and documentation of the repairs to MDT, which notified Payne on March 27 that he had their approval to reopen the bridge.

Last spring, the bridge failed an MDT inspection and was closed for about two months.

County nearing completion of Sheep Creek Bridge repairs [2024]

Last year’s damage was likely caused by overweight loads traveling over the bridge, according to county public works.

County Commissioners approved an agreement with MDT during in March 2024 for up to $65,000 of state funds to hire a firm to engineer and design temporary repairs to make the bridge safe for traffic and pass an MDT inspection, as well as purchase the needed materials, according to the county public works department.

Payne said that the county was approached by MDT about the Sheep Creek Bridge’s January 2023 inspection, during which is scored lowest of all county bridges due to the poor structure and age of the bridge.

County working to repair damaged Sheep Creek Bridge [2024]

The 2023 Legislature made funds available for the maintenance of county roads and the reconstruction and repair of local roads and bridges and the Sheep Creek Bridge is eligible for those funds.

Payne said that MDT contacted him in 2023 about those funds and had verbally agreed to proceed with using those funds to replace the Sheep Creek Bridge.

The county signed an agreement with MDT in April 2024 for the complete bridge replacement, at no cost to the county.

Payne said he contact MDT a few months ago for an update on plans for the bridge replacement and found there was a lengthy list of bridges for that funding.

He said MDT hired a consultant to inspect all of those bridges and priorities them to determine the order in which they’d be replaced.

Payne said he didn’t know when the new bridge would be engineered, designed or built, but MDT has been helpful through the process and whenever the county needs help with repairs to the bridge.

He said the Sheep Creek Bridge gets very little traffic.