Work on roads, dam at Fresno

Havre Daily News staff

More work is underway on the roads and bridges at Fresno Dam and reservoir that will lead to some restricted traffic on weekdays.

Monday, equipment and supplies for a project to upgrade and preserve the surface of the roadways on and near the dam were taken to Fresno, and Federal Highway Administration Project Engineer Matt Bean said this morning crack sealing operations would start today.

The schedule will call for flaggers Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., with pilot cars at times, he said.

When the crews start woking on the dam itself the lane will be restricted to about a 9-foot width, Bean said.

Oustide of the 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekday work schedule, traffic will not be restricted, he added.

Crack sealing will start on the boat access road, then move to the northern edge of the project by the bridge and proceed south.

“We will probably do that through the majority of this week and into the next,” Bean said.

He said after that work is completed the crew will start chip sealing the surface of the roadways, which will take about a week-and-a-half to two weeks.

The project comes on the tail end of a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation project, a geotechnical investigation that started in late July to examine the dam. It included drilling exploratory holes within the dam embankment, including two near the crest of the dam which also led to a single-lane restriction over the dam.

Bean said the BOR work on the crest of the dam was done in time for the road project to begin.