WALKER-Cass County received a Minnesota Department of Transportation grant enabling the county to install a new box culvert bridge over a tributary to Home Brook in Homebrook Township in 2019.
The grant will pay $199,640 of the new bridge cost on County Road 107. The county will use $29,940 of its state aid funds to complete the project.
County Engineer Darrick Anderson said the bridge is in an area where there have been repeated washouts. It will include two box culverts under the road, he said.
MnDOT also agreed to pay the county $33,516.67 for damage done to County Road 117 during the state construction closure of Highway 371 this fall between Backus and Hackensack.
That gravel road served as an unofficial detour and carried much heavier than normal traffic.
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The county put a second calcium chloride treatment on the road, graded it often and will have to add new gravel to it this spring, Anderson said.
"It took two years off the normal five years (for a gravel road resurfacing)," he said.
Cass also put up additional signage during the detour period.
The state's official detour took traffic about 10 miles west to paved state Highway 64, but people who knew about County Road 117 preferred the closer route even though it was gravel.
The county board approved an agreement Tuesday, Dec. 18, with the city of Federal Dam for the county to continue providing street maintenance services to the city. The city advertised for bids to seek to have a private contractor take over their street maintenance, but they received no bids.
Anderson said he has asked the city to advertise again in the spring to see whether they can get any new bids. The county does their snow plowing after all county roads are done, so the city has to wait longer for winter service than Anderson believes they would if they could hire a private contractor.
