Two major Greene County road re-paving projects are underway.

County Engineer Wade Weiss says the projects include re-paving County Road E-26 from the city of Dana to the Boone County line and P-46 from the city of Dana to US Highway 30 for a total of nine miles. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio, the Greene County Board of Supervisors approved the low bidder for these projects to Flynn Company for $10,263,843, that will be reimbursed through tax increment financing (TIF) from the wind turbines. 

Weiss talks about how these two projects will be done, as the first phase is currently underway on County Road E-26.

“We’re going to start crushing the Dana pavement, laying that back down as sub-base, after some modifications to the sub-grade, and then they’ll be paving that section in June. They’ll continue with the crushing operation, while that’s going on, going south (on County Road P-46) toward the US (Highway) 30. And then they’ll come back and pave that section in August.”  

Weiss points out that these roads were originally damaged from when MidAmerican Energy installed the wind turbines. He explains that the two projects were not originally slated to be done this year.

“Last year, we had a lot of closures on the state system. We actually moved this project ahead with the Board’s approval to try and not have that happen (as) next year is when some of the work on US (Highway) 30 is going between Jefferson and Grand Junction. So we wanted to avoid too many closures and too many detours. So we actually fast-tracked this project ahead. So I think it doesn’t sound beneficial, but it is beneficial to the traveling public.”       

Weiss adds the official detour starts at the intersection of County Road E-26 and Iowa Highway 169, south to Highway 30; then north on Iowa Highway 144 to the city of Paton and back east at County Road E-18 and P-46.