County paves bridge a second time

A Flathead County road crew this week replaced the asphalt on the Whitefish Stage Road bridge over the Stillwater River after discovering a mistake had been made during roadwork earlier this summer.

The county used a new fabric on the bridge before repaving it a couple of months ago but didn’t apply the required tack oil, county Public Works Director Dave Prunty said.

“It was a different product from a different manufacturer, and we didn’t put the tack oil down. We made a mistake,” he said.

Without the tack oil, the new asphalt began sliding on the fabric mat, so county workers had to rip up the asphalt, put the oil down and then replace the asphalt on the bridge. The work delayed traffic for a couple of days this week, but was expected to be completed by the end of the day on Tuesday.

Prunty said he didn’t immediately have a cost figure for the extra work, but said his crew applied about four to five loads of asphalt mix.

“It’s certainly something we didn’t want to occur,” he said.