The bridge that connects the two halves of Lehigh across the Des Moines River is nearing the end of its useful life.

It is going to have to be replaced and doing so is going to cost big bucks. Those are inescapable facts.

But here’s some good news: Webster County leaders have been able to secure a little over $9 million in grants to help pay for replacing that bridge.

A big portion of that money — $6.2 million — came from a U.S. Department of Transportation grant award that was recently announced. Webster County was the only community in Iowa to get any money from that particular grant program.

The county had previously received $2 million from the state government for the bridge. Plus, it received $1 million previously from a different federal program.

That’s a lot of federal and state money for a county bridge in a small city.

But that money didn’t just fall into the county’s lap. It took years of work by local officials to build contacts and master grant application processes to put the county in a position where it could possibly get that money.

We think County Engineer Jamie Johll summed it up correctly when he told The Messenger, “This is proof positive of how important the relationships that we’ve built are, particularly the face-to-face time the D.C. delegation has during those trips.”

In the late 1990s, then-U.S. Rep. Tom Latham encouraged Fort Dodge and Webster County leaders to have a presence in the nation’s capital so that the community could take advantage of what the federal government offers. So lobbying trips that include representatives of Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa Central Community College and the Greater Fort Dodge Growth Alliance are conducted yearly.

We have seen a lot of good things for the community emerge from contacts made during those trips. The riverfront project in Fort Dodge has been one of them.

It might be pretty tough to link a specific meeting or trip to the award of a specific grant. But the overall picture is very clear — it is well worth the time to make the connections, meet the key players and learn the processes. Doing so has paid off for Fort Dodge and Webster County.

We thank our local leaders for their persistence in these matters and urge them to keep at it.