Pictured: The stretch of gravel from State Highway 75 east to Newalta Dairy gets a lot of truck traffic. It has soft spots and washboards. The county hopes to remedy this problem by having the road tiled to help with drainage.

By Jill Fennema –

Last week’s county board meeting was quite routine. The majority of the meeting was taken up with committee reports from each board member and the road and bridge report from Nick Bergman, the county highway engineer.

Bergman, in addition to reporting on the work of the county for the last month and upcoming projects, asked the board to approve the purchase of a new cracking sealing material that Rock County has had success with. This mastic material can be used to fill larger cracks in the road before they are overlaid. The county approved the purchase, which will be paid for with state aid maintenance funds.

Bergman also received permission to get bids on tiling a couple stretches of road in the county. He is looking for different ways to reduce soft spots on the gravel roads. One method is to clean the ditch to improve drainage and then add gravel to the road.  Another method they have been trying is to tile the road itself.

Nick did some research on this last year and estimates that tiling roads will cost $9,000 to $13,000 per mile. The cost of cleaning ditches is similar.

He suggested to the board that they tile a couple of areas this summer and compare the results to those roads where the ditch was cleaned and see which method works the best and is the most cost effective.

He wants to try this on County Road 61 from U.S. Highway 75 to the Newalta Dairy in Gray Township.  He also suggested this be done on a 1.5 miles of gravel up by Casanovia. Both of these areas get heavy traffic.

The expense will be paid for with wheelage tax. He will let bids on these projects soon.

The annual road and bridge meeting will be held  on Monday, Feb. 28, at the Pipestone County EMS building. The meeting will begin at 9 a.m.