Growing hole closes Nielsville Bridge

NIELSVILLE - The Nielsville Bridge, a Red River crossing connecting Minnesota’s Polk County with North Dakota’s Traill County, closed this week after a hole formed on the bridge deck.
The bridge, which averages about 400 vehicles daily, will remain closed until further notice.
The two nearest Red River crossings are about 15 miles away by road to the north or south.
“We closed it so that we can have the deck analyzed so we can determine what our next steps are,” said Richard Sanders, Polk County (Minnesota) engineer.
Traill County (North Dakota) Road Superintendent Cory Martin said he received the initial call about noon Monday regarding a hole in the bridge’s eastbound driving lane. The hole measured roughly about 2 feet by 3 feet Tuesday morning.
“It was a smaller hole at first,” he said. “It got bigger while I was waiting for my crew to get here.”
The bridge was closed about 3 p.m. Monday.
Martin and Kris Bakkegard, an engineer with KLG Engineers, conducted an initial investigation of the damage Tuesday.
The two nearest Red River crossings are between Climax, Minnesota, and Buxton, North Dakota, to the north and between Shelly, Minnesota, and Caledonia, North Dakota, to the south.
The Nielsville Bridge, a steel truss structure with a concrete deck, was built in 1940.
“It’s one of those bridges I’m hoping to replace in the near future,” Sanders said, “but we have to weigh the cost of repairing with the cost of replacement.”
However, bridge replacement currently is not in the budget for either county, which would share costs of repairs or replacement.