Maintenance approved for Highways F-34 and F-70

Two contracts for secondary roads repairs along Highway F-34 and Highway F-70 were approved on Aug. 27 by the Jasper County Board of Supervisors. The work for both projects will be completed by Denco Highway Construction Corporation for more than $105,000 and more than $263,000.

Jasper County Engineer Michael Frietsch said both highways are paved routes and they are in need of some attention. The repairs for Highway F-34 extend from the Polk County line to Valeria, Frietsch said, and the repairs for Highway F-70 extend from Highway S6G to Monroe city limits.

“What we’re looking at doing for both of these roads is basically filling in the larger cracks and then using slurry to level out the bumps and dips, and then we’re going to seal coat them with scrub seal,” he said. “The idea behind this is we can use farm-to-market money for this and we let it through the DOT.”

Frietsch described it as a “glorified maintenance project.” But doing it this way allows the county to use local funds for other projects. The maintenance to both highways will buy the county about five years of extra life to these routes. From there the county can start looking at overlays or projects of that nature.

“We can always re-seal coat and refill this layer in five years, too, and keep doing this until we can afford something else otherwise,” Frietsch said.

Three bids were received by the Iowa Department of Transportation in the Aug. 20 letting for the Highway F-34 repairs. Denco provided the lowest bid of $105,108.06. Midwest Coatings Company, Inc. submitted a $128,336.29 bid and Manatt’s Inc. submitted a $139,562.45 bid. The county budgeted $100,000.

Again, three bids were received by the IDOT for the Highway F-70 repairs. Denco provided the lowest bid of $263,944.47. Manatts submitted a $305,287.11 bid and Midwest Coatings Company submitted a $392,239.34 bid.

“We haven’t really done it this way before,” Frietsch said. “We actually kind of had to make the plans work to what we wanted and find standard ways to get it to go, to make it work. But we found a path so we’re going to be doing this more now in other areas. Like F-74 is the next one.”

Supervisor Brandon Talsma said, “If it works and holds up.”

The county engineer estimated both projects can be completed in September or before winter at the latest. He said it is a fairly quick process.