Major road construction to start in Jefferson County

JEFFERSON COUNTY - Jefferson County is about to embark on one of its biggest road resurfacing projects in over a decade.

Construction will affect five roads in all, three of which the county bonded for to the tune of $6.5 million. The other two are being paid for through SWAP funds that the state awards from the federal government.

The roads to be repaved are:

' Pleasant Plain Road near the town of Pleasant Plain

' Germanville Road from the Washington-Jefferson county line south to 150th Street

' Packwood Road from Brookville Road south to U.S. Highway 34

' Brookville Road from the Packwood Road east to Grimes Avenue just outside Fairfield

' Vetch Boulevard north of U.S. Highway 34 near the town of Lockridge

Norris Asphalt Paving Co. of Ottumwa was awarded the contract. It initially announced it would begin repaving the roads April 13, but later delayed the start date to April 20 because of cold weather. The company will have multiple crews working on the roads at once, so motorists are advised that their commutes on any of the roads could be affected starting Monday.

Jefferson County Engineer Scott Cline said all of the resurfacing will be hot mix asphalt. He added that these particular roads were chosen because they've all reached a point where, if no repairs are made, the county will have to redo them from scratch.

'We might have had to break up the concrete and use it as a base rock, then put down new asphalt or concrete on top,” Cline said. 'We're trying to catch it before it's too far gone.”

The asphalt mix will be one inch thick and known as an interlayer, which is supposed to stop existing cracks in the base of the road from reflecting up to the new surface.

'We're expecting 20-30 years out of this new asphalt,” Cline said.

Cline said a common road resurfacing practice is to mill off a portion of the old road before putting new asphalt in its place.

Cline said the county settled on resurfacing these five roads after the Iowa Department of Transportation's road survey. The DOT has a van that takes pictures of the roads and has a laser that can determine the extent of cracking in them.

'All of the roads we chose showed up as needing work on this survey,” Cline said. 'And you could just tell by looking even without [the survey].”

Road closures

Cline said none of the roads should be completely closed at any time during construction. However, they will be partially closed, and this means motorists will have to wait for a pilot car to lead them from one end of the construction zone to the other. Cline said motorists should factor possible delays into their travel along these roads.

'And we don't want drivers going really fast through the area because we want the workers to be safe,” he said.

Norris Asphalt has not said when it expects to finish the roads, but Cline remarked that if the weather is good, finishing by July is possible.

Supervisor Lee Dimmitt said that arranging for these roads to be resurfaced has been one of the highlights of the year.

'I feel I can walk out of here on Dec. 31 and say ‘Mission Accomplished,'” he said, referring to the fact he will not seek reelection after serving 12 years on the Board of Supervisors. 'Some of the roads were very unsafe and not fit for travel by today's standards.”

Dimmitt said Jefferson County has traditionally been a pay-as-you-go county, meaning it did not take out loans, but he said that policy was not feasible with the amount of work to do and the restrictions on allowable revenue growth imposed by the state.

'[The construction] will be inconvenient for some folks, but I'm hoping they realize that in the end, it will be a lot safer and they'll have new roads,” Dimmitt said. 'It will be inconvenient for planting season, but I'd much rather have them start now so they can be done by harvest.”