County pushes IFC officials on 180th Street

LEE COUNTY – Lee County Supervisors have given the Iowa Fertilizer Plant two months to make progress on plans to fix 180th Street or the county will start the process of turning the road back to rock.
Lee County Supervisor Garry Seyb said the county has given the fertilizer plant until Aug. 21 to come up with a plan to fix the road that was built as a haul road as part of the agreement with the county to build the Iowa Fertilizer Plant in Wever.
County Engineer Ben Hull said a meeting was held with IFC officials last week. But he said that the county has been trying to get something done with the road for about seven years.
“It’s part of the contract we had with them when they built the facility,” Hull told Supervisors. “That contract says the county should never have to put money into infrastructure for the fertilizer plant.”
Seyb said there is currently a grant in front of the county that has to be submitted by Aug. 18 that could provide up to $3 million for the reconstruction of the road.
The road was originally taken to hard surface during the construction to allow heavy loads and employees to enter the facility on the plant’s north side. IFC paid to have the road surfaced, but Hull said it was not built to code as it was only supposed to be a temporary access road.
But Hull said now the county is liable for any accidents on the road, so he believes the county should revert it back to gravel which could eliminate truck traffic and reduce speed on the road.
Seyb said IFC officials were open to discussion in the 90-minute meeting and asked what the county needed the fertilizer plant to do to help with the situation.
“The fertilizer plant has done some things already, including some preliminary engineering studies, so it’s not like they aren’t willing to help,” he said.
“They were open to our suggestions.”
He said those suggestions included the fertilizer plant committing to paying the 20%, or about $600,000 to satisfy the match required for the grant.
He also said any documentation or reports that the IFC has done around the plant road would also be appreciated and useful for the grant application.
The grant is part of the federal government’s infrastructure bill.
Hull said the government had hoped to roll the program out last year, but some last minute changes pushed the first rollout of funding into this year.
Twenty-five percent of the government's allocation for the grant, called the PROTECT Grant, is earmarked for rural communities with less than 20,000 people
“I think we make a pretty attractive application for this grant,” Seyb said.
Hull said the county probably wouldn’t hear whether they would be awarded any money until the spring.
Supervisor Charles Holmes asked when the county would know if they’ve been awarded a grant. Seyb said that would probably take four months at a minimum.
The PROTECT grant is administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation and stands for the Promoting Resilient Operations for Transformative, Efficient, and Cost-saving Transportation Program and is part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.