Echo Trail road project starts soon

A pre-construction meeting Thursday should hammer out the timeline for a major road project on the Echo Trail.The St. Louis County Board has approved KGM’s bid of $2,605,627 to rebuild 2.6 miles of road.The project will start at the Bass Lake parking lot and then veer north from the current roadway, ending approximately one-half mile past Passi Road.“It’s all going to be rebuilt,” said county engineer Earl Wilkins. “This will be brand-spankin’ new construction.” The new section will match the existing work done from Highway 88 to the Bass Lake parking lot. The road will have two 12-foot driving lanes and six-foot shoulders. “Essentially the road will look like the first portion we did,” said Wilkins. Eighty percent of the project funding comes the federal government with the county coming up with the remainder. Wilkins said traffic during construction is a top issue since there is no feasible way to reroute traffic.“Certain areas will have to be built under traffic and we’re addressing that,” said Wilkins. “It’s something we’ll be addressing with the contractor.”Just who the contractor would be was another issue in the project that faced scrutiny. For Commissioner Mike Forsman, this project has had more than its share of controversy.“If I was choosing a contractor myself and I had a choice I would not have chosen KGM,” said Forsman.“I think their finished products have been decent but my concerns are that during the construction period there has been an attittude not favorable to people using road or to property owners and I use Highway 4 as an example,” said Forsman. He said on the Highway 4 project there were many complaints from the public about KGM. “The other thing that weighed into my thinking if you look into their cost overruns they run almost 30 percent and their closest competitor was just at 12 percent,” said Forsman.But Forsman said the county is hoping there will not be those types of problems with the Echo Trail project.“We have been given assurances by KGM from the owners and upper management that they are going to have team meetings with all of the staff and that they are going to be responsive to people,” said Forsman.As for cost overruns, Forsman said. “There may some work stoppages instead of just approving a change order and I think the county board made it very clear we’re not going to be accepting a 29 percent overrun on this project.”Forsman said the positives outweigh the negatives on the project.“The good news for the public is there’s an expectation that when the road’s finished it will be a really nice road and it will be done right,” he said.As for issues involving the road’s proximity to Burntside Lake and a privately owned beach where the road cut through private property, Forsman knows those issues may linger.“That issue isn’t totally resolved but it’s mostly resolved,” said Forsman. “No matter what the public said, the public only owned where the road is. Bill Defenbaugh owns the beach and pays lakeshore taxes for that land.”As for the road being right next to Burntside Lake, Forsman said there were concerns raised over the impact of the road on the lake. “The DNR was very, very against the salting of that road and we had to salt it in the winter time because of its location,” said Forsman. “The DNR in a statewide perspective is working to get away from roads being close to lakes and this is the only opportunity to pull that road away and protect integrity of the lake.” Wilkins said the project has a completion date of July 10, 2005.