Galena bridge/I-580 contract awarded despite cost

By Geoff Dornan
Appeal Capitol Bureau, gdornan@nevadaappeal.com
November 6, 2006, 2:32 PM

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The Nevada transportation board voted this morning to award the $393.4 million contract to complete the Galena Creek Bridge and complete the freeway between Reno and Carson City.

The bid by Fisher Sand and Gravel of Phoenix is $75 million more than engineers estimated but Gov. Kenny Guinn, chairman of the board, agreed that, with double-digit inflation in road building materials for the past three years, the price will just get higher and higher the longer the state waits.

Fisher should be formally awarded the contract later this week and Nevada Department of Transportation officials said they expect work to resume by January.

Work on the bridge — which accounts for as much as $95 million of the total — was halted in June after bridge contractor, Edward Kraemer & Sons, pulled out in a disagreement over whether the huge steel arch supporting the 1,719 foot long, 300 foot high bridge could be safely erected given wind conditions at the site.

NDOT Director Jeff Fontaine said the other alternatives including rebidding the project, dividing it into smaller projects and abandoning it to find another route would all involve multi-year delays and, in the end, much higher costs. He said inflation in road building materials was 10 percent two years ago, then 14 percent and probably 14 percent again this year with no end in sight.

Clinton Myers, of C.C. Myers of Sacramento, is the subcontractor who will finish the huge bridge. He said he isn’t concerned about the safety of erecting the span because, “We’re not going to build it the way they’ve got it designed.”

He said instead of a steel arch, they will use poured concrete.

It will take just over four years to complete the freeway connecting Reno and Carson City. The 8.5 mile stretch from the Mount Rose Junction to the north end of Washoe Valley is the final segment of that freeway.