Travel in southeastern Jasper County is expected to be significantly impacted by a road closure at 7 a.m. tomorrow, for a $2.2-million bridge replacement project. Jasper County’s Secondary Roads Department will be closing County Highway F-62 at the North Skunk River east of Lynnville. Jasper County Engineer Mike Frietsch says the bridge replacement just west of the Jasper/Poweshiek County line will probably close Highway F-62 until Thanksgiving.

“I am not going to mince words. This is going to be tough. There is no other good alternative to that road at all. The traffic count is higher. It’s going to have a regional impact basically.”

The official detour involves going through the communities of Lynnville, New Sharon, and Searsboro. Frietsch says all the steel on the bridge is original from when it was built in 1935. The bridge deck was replaced and widened from 24 to 26 feet in 1990, when Highway F-62 was still Iowa Highway 225. According to Frietsch, the county took over maintenance for the highway in the early 2000s.

Peterson Contractors of Reinbeck submitted the only bid on the 314-foot bridge project and their $2,233,387 quote was below the $2.4 million engineer’s estimate.