Counting the miles, millions spent on road projects

Talk about it

Now that all the snow has melted, county road crews are well into road maintenance and fixing destruction a brutal winter brought.

The Stark County road crew has been patching potholes in subdivisions.

“It will take us a while,” said Al Heiser, county road superintendent. “We’re going to have to get into some of those subdivisions and do some major overhauls.”

He said they are about a quarter of the way done fixing breakups in subdivisions.

There are several other projects planned for Stark County and about $1.32 million is budgeted for projects this year.

Roadwork is being done on about four miles of 107th Avenue Southwest, which is south of Dickinson. The project began earlier this month and Heiser expects it will be done in about a month.

Two bridges will be replaced with box culverts southeast of South Heart on 116th Avenue Southwest and 118th Avenue Southwest.

“They’re old and they need replacing,” Heiser said.

The road crew will also repave 109th Avenue Southwest and 35th Street Southwest, which is north of Dickinson.

Sections of Highway 10 will also undergo construction.

Stark County will repave about six miles of the highway from 116th Avenue to South Heart.

Golden Valley County

Golden Valley County is also working on Highway 10 from Sentinel Butte to Beach.

The crew there will be recycling the old road, refreshing the materials and repaving about eight miles, said Pete Wirtzfeld, road superintendent.

“Two hours after that’s done traffic can drive on it,” Wirtzfeld said.

He added heavy trucks will not be allowed for about two weeks and the project should be done in about a week.

Golden Valley County has set aside about $1.7 million for this project and other smaller maintenance work this year.

Billings County

National Forest Service Route 762 in Billings County will be relocated, said Craig Kubas, Billings County engineer. The road is in the southern part of the county.

“It’s kind of maze through an oil field and they’re realigning it,” Kubas said.

This project will not hinder traffic.

Black Tail Road in central Billings County will also be resurfaced, Kubas said.

Hettinger County

The Hettinger County road crew has its hands full this summer, repairing spring flood damage.

About 650 sites were damaged by flooding, Rod Mueller, Hettinger County road superintendent said.

The damage is county-wide and includes roads, culverts and bridges.

“Hopefully we’ll get the majority of it done this summer,” Mueller said.

The county has budgeted $200,000 for road projects. Repairing washout and culvert replacement has already begun.

“We have some bridges that are closed right now that they have to go around,” Mueller said.

Slope County

Slope County doesn’t have any major projects planned for the summer. The road crew will work on regular road and culvert maintenance, said Dale Powell, Slope County road foreman.

The county budgeted $865,000 for road projects this year, but Powell said nothing they have planned will slow traffic.

“We’ll be done before anybody knows we’re even there,” Powell said.

Outside counties

The Adams County road department has $810,845 budgeted for the year.

Bowman County has $4.58 million budgeted for the road department in 2009.

Dunn County has $3.5 million set aside for its road department.

No one in these three counties was available to discuss summer projects when called Wednesday.

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