Beatrice river access project cost may be too high to handle

BEATRICE – A proposed canoe and kayak launch access on the Big Blue River has hit a potential snag…its cost.

The City of Beatrice received bids recently for the project proposed near the West Court Street Big Blue River bridge. City Administrator Tobias Tempelmeyer said Lottman Excavating bid $155,000 and Gana Trucking placed a bid of $194,000 The city budgeted $12,500 from lodging tax revenue and had commitments from Beatrice Plus for $6,000 and the Lower Big Blue NRD for $6,500..... contributions totaling $25,000.

Mayor Stan Wirth says the higher-than-expected cost has the city considering its next move.  "We received a couple of bids but they were way above the engineer's estimate and way above what we had budgeted for that project. There's a couple of ways we can look at it. We can either throw more money at it, or we can try to scale back the scope of that project. Scaling that back to what is affordable may not be approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, going forward."

Wirth said the project is on hold, for the moment. Just recently, the city received U.S. Army Corps of Engineers design and permit approval for the access.

"We can research grants to see if any of those are available. You can go back to donors to see if they are willing to give up some of their not-so-plentiful dollars. At this point, I don't know that we as a community are going to throw much more money at that....I'm never gonna say never...but I think there has to be that those who are promoting it, those that are really wanting it, are going to have to help step up and see if we can't get it paid for, somehow."

The idea for the river access project came about as an attempt to capitalize on growing popularity of canoe, kayak and float recreation, and its potential beneficial effect on local business.