Gov. Dalrymple visits Dickinson, talks oil impact funding
Gov. Jack Dalrymple shook hands with area residents Wednesday and talked oil impact funding during his visit to Dickinson.
Gov. Jack Dalrymple shook hands with area residents Wednesday and talked oil impact funding during his visit to Dickinson.
“As far as Dickinson is concerned, I would say the greatest single thing is the $35 million set aside for larger cities in oil country as part of the oil impact fund,” Dalrymple said.
He expects about $10 million of that will be funneled to Dickinson.
“Clearly Dickinson has the need,” Dalrymple said. “You’re going to have a huge increase in housing requirements in the Dickinson area. You do have the developers here who are involved, they’re engaged, but as you know building the roads and the streets out to the development and installing all of the infrastructure is going to be very costly.”
City Engineer Shawn Soehren said priorities for road improvements include 25th Avenue East, 10th Avenue East, Museum Drive and a bypass road to go around Dickinson.
“We’re meeting with DOT at the end of the month actually to talk about needs and priorities the city has as it relates to transportation,” Soehren said.
He estimated $10 million would repair about five miles of road, including curb and gutter work.
City officials are also trying to apply some oil impact funding to a waste water treatment facility project, Soehren said.
Dalrymple said $142 million was set aside for reconstruction and repair of county and township roads and $228.6 million was allocated for state highways within the 17 oil and gas producing counties.
“They put an emergency clause on it which means its available today,” he said.
The North Dakota Department of Transportation will prioritize how much of that money goes where, Dalrymple said.
“Right now county officials and DOT are working together to determine road projects over the next few weeks,” said Peggy Anderson, Communications Director for NDDOT. “Engineering and design work takes place over the next couple of months and bid openings for the projects will actually start in June and July of this year.”
Construction on some projects may begin this summer, but many projects won’t, she added.
“The bulk of the construction on these roads will take place starting in May 2012,” Anderson said.
Stark County Road Superintendent Al Heiser said he hopes some of the funding can be used to repave a section of Highway 10.
“By doing that, we’ll be able to take the load restrictions off,” Heiser said.
He would like to see the highway paved from 116th Avenue Southwest to South Heart done this summer.
“The second segment of this project, which probably won’t happen until 2012, that will be from the South Heart interchange where we left off to the Billings and Stark line on Highway 10,” Heiser said.
He estimated the entire project will cost $9 million to $10 million.
“It’s not only for the oil fields it’s for the traveling public to make things safer,” Heiser said
He is thankful Dalrymple and legislators made the funding available.
“I think he understands what’s happening here because we need help,” Heiser said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s a lot of projects, but it will help traffic flow.”
Tags: gov. jack dalrymple, oil, news
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