Some Jefferson County roads reduced to one lane

FAIRFIELD — Motorists in Jefferson County should be mindful of road construction that is reducing some roads to one lane.

On July 12, contractors working for Jefferson County began patching and crack sealing asphalt roads. The contractors have already finished their work on Brookville Road, Packwood Road and a portion of Pleasant Plain Road.

The roads that are left are Germanville Road in the northeast corner of the county near the border with Washington County, then going south on Germanville Road where it turns into Vetch Boulevard and stopping at Lockridge. Another section will be on the Pleasant Plain Road from 167th Street to the city limits of Fairfield.

Jefferson County Engineer DeWayne Heintz said the sections being patched and sealed on Pleasant Plain are on 8-year-old pavement.

“That’s an older road,” he said.

Portions of these affected roads will be down to one lane, with a pilot car assisting motorists. Residents should expect travel delays while the roads are under construction.

An email sent out by the Jefferson County Secondary Roads Department indicated the patching and sealing would finish by Aug. 5, though Heintz said the contractors are working quickly and as of Friday, July 15, they were about half done. He said the 28-miles of patching and sealing could be done as early as later this week.

The Union asked Heintz why several of the roads were being patched and sealed when they are just a few years old, such as the roads the county resurfaced in 2020 as part of its $6.5 million bond project that covered Pleasant Plain Road near the town of Pleasant Plain, Germanville Road near the border with Washington County, Brookville Road, Packwood Road and Vetch Boulevard near Lockridge.

Heintz said cracks can develop in asphalt after one to five years, and the best way to preserve the roads is to seal them as soon as possible. Inserting a seal into the cracks acts like bubble gum that expands and contracts as the road settles, but without allowing moisture to enter. He said that, if moisture enters the cracks, it will find its way to the subgrade, and that eventually makes the ground less stable.

“We’re putting pavement on top of a flexible material, because the earth moves,” he said. “In the road construction business, you’re trying to make a flexible medium — the soil — behave as a more rigid material. At some point, it’s going to move and that will reflect up through the pavement.”

Heintz said the county is patching and sealing these roads now because it has invested a lot of money in them, and it wants them to last.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com