Effort to get Swamp Creek road section repaired intensifies

Whether he’s eating out for lunch, shopping at a convenience store or attending Rotary Club, county commissioner Tony Berget is handing out postcards to everyone he bumps into. 

He has so far mailed about 3,500 of them, requesting each person to fill in name and return address on four postcards for four destinations – the offices of Gov. Brian Schweitzer, state department of transportation director Jim Lynch, Sen. Max Baucus and Rep. Denny Rehberg.

Berget has considered distributing postcards at the entrance of Rosauers as soon as he runs out of friends and acquaintances, but it hasn’t come down to that yet.

“I don’t think I printed enough,” he said Wednesday after dispensing a stack of postcards at lunch. “When I give one set out, people will request more for their friends and family. I’ve just had nothing but huge support.”

Berget began the postcard campaign a few weeks ago to supplement his efforts to bring attention to the nine-mile stretch of Highway 2, south of Libby, that has been on the DOT’s backlog to be rebuilt since the 1980s. 

He estimates that he has about 1,500 postcards left, which read, “Since 1984… Highway 2 Swamp Creek. We’ve waited long enough!”

The narrow, rough road between mile markers 45 and 54 has seen its share of head-on collisions and roll-off accidents, according to Penny Kyes of the Libby Volunteer Ambulance.

“It’s a deadly road,” Kyes said. “Some of our worst car wrecks have been in the Swamp Creek.”

Kyes and the rest of the ambulance crew have filled out Berget’s postcards in hopes that it will persuade officials to put up the funds to finally rebuild the road.

“I just think that Lincoln County deserves it,” Kyes said. “We’ve waited a long time. It’s been put on the back burner over and over and over, and it’s our turn.” 

Berget said that the postcards are meant to show Lynch, the governor and congressmen that though he is the most vocal about the Swamp Creek project, there are many others who back the mission.

Lynch said that the state’s system of allocating funds to projects is performance-based, so sending him hundreds of postcards will not change the decisions that are made at the DOT.

The project can, however, receive federal earmarks, which it has in the past.

“It took a similar effort last time to get the section that’s done right now,” Berget said. “We’ve had to fight, claw, and scratch to get any of that highway done from the beginning.”

Baucus, chairman of the federal transportation and infrastructure subcommittee, awarded the Swamp Creek project a $6 million appropriation in 2004. It was a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated cost of the entire 12-mile project so the DOT broke it up into three smaller jobs, spending the appropriation on a three-mile section.

With rising construction costs the DOT downsized work on the three-mile section to keep it within $6 million by eliminating a passing lane and reducing the paved shoulder width from 8 feet to 4 feet.

The year before receiving the appropriation, the county sent two busloads of locals representing the ambulance, hospital, schools, law enforcement and businesses to Helena to voice their concern for the road and its four decaying bridges. 

Former county commissioner Rita Windom still has the same concerns.

“I’ve harped on that because the sides of the bridges are gone,” she said.  “They (inspectors) say the bridges aren’t in any danger of collapsing, but they’re still dangerous.

“They’re too narrow for today’s traffic,” she added

The most recent disappointment concerning the delayed project was that it did not make the DOT’s list to receive federal stimulus funds.

Lynch said that the project’s design was not complete, so it did not meet the “shovel ready” requirement. Berget and Windom lament that design has been the excuse for years.

“It was always, ‘design, design, design, it costs too much money, and you don’t have enough accidents,’” Windom said. “I called them (DOT) two weeks ago and I got the same thing again.”

Lynch is not sure why lack of funding and the project’s complex design have not been overcome in the over 20 years since the project has been identified.

“I couldn’t answer that,” he said. “I wasn’t around then. I don’t know why.”

Van Swearingen, Libby supervisor for the DOT, said that the agency is currently working on the complex environmental and engineering obstacles of building a road on swampy ground.

“They’re trying to put together the final, acceptable design of the road,” Swearingen said. “They need a completed design before they can even throw it out in front of the money when it (the money) comes.”

Berget claimed that he had a copy of the latest complete design, but Lynch said there never has been one.

“There were designs, but I don’t think we had a design that we knew we could build, due to the soil conditions that were out there,” Lynch said. “It was also extremely expensive … finding funding was extremely slim.”

Swearingen spent half of a day with the design crew last month. They made small changes to accommodate land ownership and are shaping a way to drain water from the soil that will satisfy all parties concerned.

“It’s a very intense water quality issue,” he said. “They have to come up with water drainage to satisfy all parties concerned. It is on an active stream, so fish and game has to be involved, for example.”  

Lynch has confidence in the new design to de-water and stabilize the soil.

“We feel that it’s the most prudent design,” Lynch said, “something that is fundable, and something the community can appreciate in the near future.”