“We’re getting close.”

Prep work continues to place two large highway bridges along the Salt Creek Trail. Crews have been working for weeks near the former Casa del Sol along State Road 46 East to build a foundation for one of the bridge sections.

At the March 4 Brown County Commissioners meeting, Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner said that as far as he knew, the bridges from Clay County were still on schedule to be delivered in April.

They will be used to connect sections of the trail in Eagle Park. The Eagle Park section will run from Brown County State Park to Parkview Road. The other bridge will go over the part of Salt Creek that divides the state park from Eagle Park.

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“The whole thing (metal truss bridge) is at rehab now. It’s been completely deconstructed and they will replace more than 50 percent of it,” commissioner Diana Biddle said of the bridges. “We’re getting close.”

Magner said the bridge will be delivered in pieces, and that it would be fall before it’s put back together.

The middle route

Resident Tim Clark asked about the status of purchasing land to complete the trail. One, three-quarter-mile section exists now between CVS and the YMCA, and this new section will be built between the state park and Parkview Road, but the two won’t connect right away, because land hasn’t been secured for the middle route.

“By the federal process, we’re not at that point yet. We can’t talk to owners yet. They have to have the environmental completely approved before any offers can be made. It’s not quite there yet,” Magner said.

Biddle added that because federal money is involved in the project, they have to follow the National Environmental Policy Act process.

“Once that’s finished, then we can finish the appraisals and make offers,” Magner said.

Trail maintenance

The Brown County Parks and Recreation Board discussed maintaining the Salt Creek Trail at their Feb. 26 meeting. Parks and rec Director Mark Shields told the board that the department had been struggling in recent months with flooding and mud on the trail.

“Over time, the shoulders of the trail, with freeze and thaw, moles and other issues, it’s basically the shoulders have heaved up on either side, so consequently, the trail sits below the shoulders, so every time it rains it’s just like a mud flow on the trail,” Shields said.

“We try to get out every time we have a major rain. We try to get out pretty quickly once it stops and either shovel it or use a grader box on our tractor to skim it off.”

A few years ago, Shields had asked the Town of Nashville about using their street sweeper to clean the trail off after rain. “They told me though they didn’t think it would be feasible to get the street sweeper at either entrance to the trail,” Shields said.

Shields also spoke with Brown County Highway Superintendent Mike Magner about resloping the trail to help with drainage. “I touched base with him again recently. He said that once the ground is dry, he would have someone with backhoe come out and dig that down, sort of ditch the sides and see if we can channel the water away from the trail instead of directly onto the trail.”

Shields told the board he had received an email from someone whose mother had slipped on the mud on the trail. “They thought we had equipment to wash the trail off, and I stated we didn’t have any such equipment, but what we did have, we would try to stay on it the best we could,” he said.

“I’m hoping once we can kind of get the grade changed, it won’t be as much of an issue.”

If the mud continues to be a problem after the grade change, Shields said he had been looking into rotary broom attachments for the department’s John Deere Gator.

When the trail is complete and extends to Brown County State Park, parks and rec will continue to do the maintenance of it. But where that budget will come from is uncertain.

“We have $100 that the council has allocated for our trail maintenance fund. We used that pretty quick, in about two or three hours,” he said.

Shields estimated that they spend a little less than $1,000 on trail maintenance annually. “I keep a log every time we go out and what we do,” he said.

“But that’s looking at a ‘Here’s a trail that’s only a few years old that up until recently hasn’t had a lot of maintenance issues.’”

The parks and rec department also has an endowment set up with the Brown County Community Foundation, and that money is for trail maintenance only. Shields estimated the endowment provides a couple of thousand dollars a year for trail maintenance.

“But once we have more surfacing that we have to deal with, then that will be an issue,” he said.

He told the board he was in talks with the Brown County Commissioners about doing tree work along the trail, too.

Parks and rec board member Kara Hammes said the area between the trail and the Brown County YMCA is considered wetlands. She said the department would have to be careful as far as what is drained in that area.

Board member John Kennard suggested reaching out to local volunteer fire departments to use their brush trucks to clear the trail off.