County takes action on highway department items

The Lake County Commission has passed a resolution establishing restricted truck traffic on a portion of a county road in the northeast area of the county.  Commissioners on Tuesday approved a resolution proposed by Highway Superintendent Nels Nelson restricting truck traffic on 220th Street from 463rd to 464th Avenues until the road can be built back up.  Nelson said that trucks with heavier loads traveling on the road has done damage to it.

Nelson said that the area is posted also on the Brookings County side.  He said the area will be closed to trucks effective immediately to keep it safer for other vehicles that need to use it until the county is able to get it fixed and built back up.  

Also on Tuesday, Nelson informed commissioners that it may be difficult to get some of the county’s roads striped this summer.  He said that they were notified by the state Department of Transportation that they received no bids for the striping projects for the county.  Nelson said that there is a shortage of the traffic paint needed to do the projects because of a plant in Texas that was affected by the ice storm this past winter.  Commission Administrative Officer Shelli Gust said that the state will try to bid the projects again in a few weeks with an extended completion date in hopes of generating interest from contractors that could possibly do projects this fall or next spring depending on the paint availability.

Nelson also on Tuesday talked with county commissioners about a road maintenance technique known as slurry seal.  He said that he’d like to look at using this process possibly for work on the south Madison bypass next year, with patching to be done this year.  No action needed to be taken as Nelson said he wanted to present it to commissioners as something to think about for the upcoming year.