Salina ? A lack of money and concerns about convenience for farmers have officials in rural Kansas counties struggling to maintain and keep open scores of bridges.

Neil Cable, Saline County’s chief engineer, closed 24 bridges this summer that had become too dangerous to carry traffic.

At least 12 percent of the state’s 25,620 bridges are in need of immediate repair and about 20 percent – 3,800 bridges – are more than a month late on their biannual inspections. More than 500 are two or more years behind.

The issue of lagging bridge inspections concerns state Transportation Secretary Deb Miller.

“When we start looking at bridges that are behind on inspections, they are all over Kansas,” Miller said. “I don’t feel good about the numbers.”

She said a task force will be formed next year to help rural counties keep their bridges inspected and maintained.

Hundreds of bridges have not been rebuilt either because the local government doesn’t have enough money or doesn’t want to spend money fixing a bridge that carries very little daily traffic.

“Just the cost of bridge inspections is daunting to some counties, let alone the cost of repair,” Miller said.

The need for those inspections and repairs is immediate as farm equipment has gotten heavier, endangering bridges that were originally designed to carry only a few tons.

There have been instances in recent years of farm vehicles falling through bridge platforms, said Ron Seitz, chief of the Wichita transportation department’s bureau of local projects.

Among the options facing local transportation officials is closing low-traffic bridges, which would provide more money to focus on more important bridges but would also force farmers to drive farther to get to town or their fields.

Another is reducing the number of county roads if the county believes it will never be able to catch up on bridge and road repairs.

The focus on bridge safety came following the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis in August. Cable’s inspections of bridges in Saline County, which resulted in the closing of 24 bridges, began before the accident.

He said the closed bridges carried little traffic but acknowledged his decision has inconvenienced those drivers.

“You’d be brilliant if you could pick the day it fails and close it the day before,” he said, adding that his department lacks the money to fix all the bridges. He said some could cost up to $500,000 to repair but would carry very few vehicles.

“Can you ask everybody to pony up for that?” he asked.

The Saline County Commission is considering closing dozens of rural roads and adopting a 2-mile grid system. It will hold public hearings on the idea ending in January.

Commission Chairman Craig Stephenson said the county will still provide road access to all homes, but acknowledges, “it’s really hard to get people to buy into it.”

Marlysue Holmquist is among those dealing with a closed bridge. The education professor at Bethany College has lived 28 years with her husband and children on a farm 12 miles outside Salina, near the town of Smolan.

The county a few weeks ago closed a bridge she uses to get to Salina. The bridge, built in 1889, was possibly the oldest one in the county. But Holmquist said that since its closing, her family has had to spend more time and burn more fuel driving to their wheat, milo and soybean fields.

She said the county should stop developing new roads and bridges and repair the ones it has. “We’re here for the duration,” Holmquist said, noting that the farm has been in her husband’s family since 1868. “And I think there should be some consideration to people who have been here for a long time.”