A grant application letter of support for the McKains Bridge was approved by the Washington County Board of Supervisors earlier this week.

County Engineer Jacob Thorius explained that last fall a group came together to apply for what was formerly known as a BUILD grant which is now called a RAISE grant, which stands for Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity. The Iowa County Engineering Association with the Iowa Department of Transportation is submitting an application to receive funds to help reconstruct eight selected bridges throughout the state including the Skunk River bridge to complete route W-21. Thorius says this project will increase the bridge width from 21.9 feet to 30 feet, “Our bridge is estimated at about $6.5 million, the project would be about 20 years of our bridge funding alone which we couldn’t do. So in order to construct it we’d have to stop all other construction and pull our funding from all other resources and tie up funding for about 4.5, 5 years and do no other project to complete this one.”

Thorius informed the supervisors that he is requesting 70% of those funds. The McKains Bridge is one of two Skunk River crossings in the county, making it vital to economic and safety needs. One billion dollars are available for this federal program, and applications are due by the end of June.