Buena Vista County Engineer Bret Wilkinson provided an update on the Platinum Crush road project to the Buena Vista County Board of Supervisors at its regularly scheduled weekly meeting yesterday morning (Tuesday, July 15) at the county courthouse in Storm Lake.
According to Wilkinson, Mid-American Energy sent changes for right-of-way easements for Phase 2 of the project to him Monday afternoon. He says he passed the information along to county attorney Ashley Herrig.
“If we don’t have any issues, we’ll just agree to the changes and ask them to sign them. Hopefully that will be the case,” Wilkinson said.
After the documents are signed, Wilkinson says the county can move forward with bid letting.
“The letting would get us a contractor. Once we have contracts signed, then we talk to that contractor about their schedule and when they want to start and how they’re going to proceed, and it’s their job to give us a completion schedule. So, we get the right-of-way documents signed, go out to letting, get the contract signed with the contractor, and then we will be able to move forward with the actual construction schedule for the project,” Wilkinson said.
Phase 2 of the project involves resurfacing about two miles of 600th Street and 80th Avenue and connecting the stretch of roadway to the new pavement near the exit of the Platinum Crush plant. The facility is located east of Alta.
Following the completion of Phase 2, Wilkinson says progress on the third and final stage of the repaving project can begin.
“Phase 3 would be the work along Highway 7, so the intersections of Highway 7 and 70th Avenue and Highway 7 and 80th Avenue, putting turn lanes in, creating some more distance between the railroad and the highway so that trucks can stop and not be on the railroad tracks, etc. The DOT is in charge of that, but we’re working with them,” he said.
The three phases cost a combined $18 million.
