Residents of Crookston and anyone else interested will have an opportunity to watch the construction along Fisher Avenue with an online video stream of the work. Construction is supposed to begin around June 1 and be complete by September 1.
Polk County Engineer Rich Sanders said some projects are of more interest to the public, so a camera can help keep people informed about the work’s progress. “Every once in a while, you have a project in which you really want to keep the residents informed of what’s going on,” said Sanders. “We used a construction camera back on the Thompson Bridge, and that worked really well not only for residents but for our staff to review what’s going on out on the project. We’re going to be renting a camera from EarthCam and setting it up out by the arena. The public will be able to go on a website and review what that camera is showing. You can see how construction is going, how traffic is flowing if we’re allowing traffic on the road, and hopefully, see a productive and efficient construction project happen.”
The camera rental and streaming cost $18,719.16. More on the Fisher Avenue reconstruction is available here.
BRIDGES
Important milestones are also being reached for bridge work in Polk County. Recently, the Polk County Commissioners approved a cooperative construction agreement with Traill County in North Dakota to replace the Climax Bridge.
Sanders said the bridge should be completed in 2024. “Polk County and Traill County will be working together to replace the Climax Bridge in 2024,” said Sanders. “For them to start the administrative of doing the survey, hydraulics, all the stuff the needs to be done to get the bridge replaced because they’re going to be the lead on the Climax Bridge, we did an agency agreement so that they can bill us for our half of the work. The consultant will start working, and we’re hoping to have construction happening by fall of 2023, summer of 2024.”
The County also partnered with Traill and Grand Forks counties by applying for funding from each county’s U.S. Representative for additional bridge projects at Nielsville and Merrifield. “With the new congress and the process the house is laying out, they are bringing back earmarks which is money that each representative would get to spend money in their own district,” said Sanders. “Applications were due last week in Minnesota for Representative (Michelle) Fischbach and on Monday, for Representative (Kelly) Armstrong in North Dakota. Polk and Traill County went together and applied to both representatives for the Nielsville Bridge as another option than the BUILD grants we’ve been applying for. Then, Polk and Grand Forks County went together to apply to both for the Merrifield Crossing just south of Grand Forks, East Grand Forks.”
Finally, bids were awarded for the resurfacing and maintenance of several township bridges across the county. “Every year, Polk County gets township bridge dollars through the gas tax we can spend,” said Sanders. “This year, we put together plans for Brandsvold, Grove Park, Hammond, two in Euclid, and one in Esther that were all funded through that program. We let bids on April 9, and Taggart Excavating and Septic out of Newfolden got the Brandsvold, Grove Park, and Hammond project. Triple D Construction out of Plummer got the two in Euclid and one in Esther. Those projects will be done this summer and hopefully completed by beet harvest.”
