Flathead County will not pursue a federal grant from the Federal Emergency Management Administration to remove the Red Bridge, which spans the Flathead River in Columbia Falls.
The future of the Red Bridge has been up for debate since 2010, when a group in Columbia Falls offered to help save and rehabilitate the historic structure. The efforts were deterred by the project’s high cost, however, and the Flathead County Commission decided to pursue removing the bridge to avoid liability issues.
One of the potential avenues for removal was through the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HGMP), which is part of FEMA. The commissioners gave the green light to planning staff to look into the grant application process.
The grant would have paid for 75 percent of the bridge’s removal costs, while the county would be responsible for the remaining 25 percent.
According to Flathead County Planning and Zoning Director BJ Grieve, the application process for the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HGMP) was particularly onerous in this case.
Grieve sent a memo to the commission on March 1, detailing the troubles planning staff ran into during the application process, starting with the benefit cost analysis. The software used to complete this analysis was not designed to address bridge removals as a hazard mitigation project, Grieve said.
The planning office got in touch with FEMA, which determined that the Red Bridge is viable and agreed to help planning staff with the benefit cost analysis. However, FEMA did have concerns about destroying a bridge that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as well as potential public outcry and/or lawsuits, Grieve said.
FEMA officials said the bridge removal was “one of the most unique and complex hazard mitigation grant projects” they had seen, Grieve said in the memo, and the software could work on the proposal if the data were put in the correct formula.
This would mean creating an engineered computer model that uses hydraulic, hydrologic and topographic data to calculate which areas may flood; adding an engineered structural analysis to determine the probability of bridge failure in the event of a 20-, 50- and 100-year flood event; and quantifying alternatives and potential benefits of restoring the bridge.
Grieve told the commission that he did not believe the work to complete the cost analysis and the HMGP grant application could be finished before the March 30 deadline.
“Even if we had more time, the cost to prepare the required information just for the (benefit cost analysis) is difficult to justify since it may simply demonstrate that the project doesn’t qualify,” Grieve wrote in the memo.
FEMA’s concerns about the standard of environmental remediation and negative impacts to a historical structure could also affect approval, Grieve said, or would be an “ongoing challenge for years to come.”
The commission agreed with Grieve’s recommendation during their March 8 meeting.
“We’re back to square one,” Grieve said in an interview after the meeting. “The slate has been wiped clean.”
The commissioners are interested in the most cost-effective way to deal with the structure and diminish the existing hazard and liability, Grieve said, whether that is through removing it or partnering with the community to rehabilitate it.