WHEATLAND – Platte County Road and Bridge department supervisor Chris Bookout reported to commissioners, his department wrapped up replacement of the culver on Sybille Creek Road. “The culvert was so big and there was so much dirt…we tamped and tamped…but it’s going to settle,” Bookout said, adding, after it is settled in a few months, his crew will put concrete along the sides.
They also worked to eliminate some of the vegetation along Sybille Creek Road to mitigate snowdrifts during winter weather. In addition to other winter preparations, the county crew will be installing snow fencing in an attempt to minimize drifting snow. After commissioner Steve Shockley asked if any of those locations would be good candidates for living snow fences, Bookout said he wanted to try the wooden snow fences to see how effective the breaks are first, but, “Living snow fences take a lot less maintenance, that’s for sure.”
Bookout reported, repairs have been completed on Dickinson Hill Road southeast of Wheatland had eroded to just the rock base. The county built up the road utilizing most of its stockpile of material, which will gradually be built back up. The crew has also completed patching on Cozad Road, and is going to fix a damaged portion of East Oak Road.
In the last week of the irrigation season, a metal culvert rusted through underneath the road at the end of Drake Road where it connects to Front Road. Bookout said irrigation water soaked through over time and washed away road material, resulting in a cave-in of part of the road. The crew patched it with dirt and millings for a temporary fix, but the culvert will be replaced in the coming days.
Bookout also said he is receiving four to five phone calls a day from residents seeking the county to fix “washboard” roads. The road crews are doing what they can to address dusty or rough roads, in the meantime, Bookout also pointed out, “People also need to be cognizant of their driving practices – not flying around the corner or braking hard at the stop signs…Just one tire that skips starts the whole process of washboard roads.”

The Road and Bridge department gave the fairgrounds crew the county water truck to help them out with their equipment fleet, since Road and Bridge can get by just fine with its water trailer, according to Bookout.
He is also working with Toby Hohnholt, the Town of Wheatland street department supervisor, to coordinate use and repair of a road chip spreader between the town and county. Bookout explained, the county’s chip spreader needs transmission work completed, and the town’s is inoperable, since there are no parts available for the 1940’s model chip spreader. “It does not make sense for us, and them, to each have one when we each use it around once a year,” he said.
Bookout reported the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Town of Chugwater is still in limbo. The commissioners, after making changes per the request of the Chugwater council, approved the MOU to house the county snowplow in Chugwater’s town shop building in exchange for snow removal when the town’s equipment couldn’t handle the size of the drifts.
At the September Chugwater council meeting, the council refused to pass the MOU, stating they wanted more changes to the agreement, including a shorter term of effectiveness, a liability waiver, and changing the wording of the requested snow removal to make it possible to remove snow on as many streets as needed, whenever it is beyond the capability of the town’s equipment to do so. The council said they didn’t anticipate that to happen more often than once or twice a year, if that.
Bookout said he wasn’t sure what was going on, but he planned to be at the Oct. 7 council meeting to answer any questions the council had, and “see what’s going on.”
In the meantime, in case an agreement couldn’t be reached in a timely manner, the commissioners directed other options be sought for housing the snowplow in the area.
The commissioners also discussed an MOU request by Y-O Ranch Estates to assist in minimal road care for the taxing district’s two main roads. A decision was not reached, but commissioners agreed, they were all concerned in setting a precedence where the county could be expected to perform road maintenance – even though paid – for private entities.
The commissioners said they thought the priority of the tax-funded county road department needed to make sure the priority was on the county roads, and even if it seems minimal, the man-hours taken away from focusing on those roads needs to carry a lot of weight in any decision which may set a precedence.
Bookout also said the road department has been putting time in trying to touch up damage from irrigation water intruding upon county roadways. “The hardest part is the material, time, and people we are taking away from what we need to do [when we have to fix this kind of damage]. There are also costs associated with it in material, fuel, and time,” he said.