Almota Highway Repair

Grain trucks headed to the Port of Almota will have a smoother ride after State Department of Transportation crews finally wrapped a repaving of the Almota Highway on Tuesday.

DOT spokesman Al Gilson said Tuesday the road was given an “extreme patch job,” at the order of Keith Metcalf, eastern region director of the DOT.

After years of heavy trucks hauling grain down the Almota grade to the barge-loading facilities at the port, the road developed severe ruts.

Gilson said DOT crews have had to grade down a ridge that continually developed in the center of the road.

“There’s a lot of truck traffic, a lot of weight,” said Gilson. “And that road was just not built for it.”

Crews have been at work over the past month to fix the road, though construction was delayed several times by rains in May. The new asphalt covers about four miles of the grade.

The project cost just shy of $100,000 and was funded out of a fund to make discretionary repairs on roads in the DOT’s eastern district.