02.17.12

Highway Administration Approves New Plan to Fund Statewide Emergency Road Repairs

BISMARCK, N.D. – Governor Jack Dalrymple, Sen. Kent Conrad, Sen. John Hoeven and Rep. Rick Berg, announced today that the Federal Highway Administration has approved a new plan to fund statewide emergency road improvement projects, including needed road repairs in the Devils Lake Basin.

“Working together, we pushed for a revised plan so that counties and cities throughout the state can get the emergency road repairs they need,” Dalrymple said. “We will continue to work with local and federal officials to repair damaged roads in the Devils Lake Basin and other areas of the state.”

The new plan will reduce counties’ financial burden for emergency road repair projects. About $19 million of additional federal funds will be received to assist with statewide projects. In the Devils Lake Basin, where lake flooding continues to threaten road access, the revised plan will reduce the county funding match obligation to about $6 million. During the Special Legislative Session, the state allocated $6 million to the Devils Lake area counties for emergency road repair costs.

North Dakota had previously secured a record $317 million in federal emergency transportation funding this year to assist in repairing damaged roads throughout the state. Historic flooding and other sources of road damages have required unprecedented funding.

“We worked with the U.S. DOT to be more flexible, which increased the state’s emergency road funding to $336 million,” the congressional delegation said. “That enables us now to move forward on projects without going beyond the amount of local-county match the state is covering.”

The federal funding for emergency road repairs is comprised of: $100 million for the Devils Lake Basin; $44 million for the Mouse River Basin; $63 million for the James River Basin; more than $10 million for the Sheyenne/James Basin and $119 million for statewide emergency needs.

The revised plan will not affect the state’s regular federal-aid road construction program and will not compromise the safety of the state’s transportation system, state Department of Transportation Director Francis Ziegler said.