Underway on Cottonwood County Road #1; Closed between Mountain Lake, Highway 30 until October 17
Crews are busy doing “mill work” on Cottonwood County Road #1. Milling off of the roadway began on Monday morning, July 31, moving south toward Mountain Lake from Cottonwood County Road #3. The area between County 3 and Highway 30 will be next to be milled.
Eventually, a PCC (Portland Cement Concrete) overlay will then be placed from north of Mountain Lake to Minnesota State Highway #30.
Also as part of this summer’s construction work on County 1, bridge was replaced between 350th Street and County 3.
By Wednesday afternoon, August 2, the asphalt was being eaten up within the city limits, past Mike Spink Seed, Bargen Inc., Midway Auto Body, Midway Farm Equipment and Munson Field. Workers were completing this section’s final stretch between 6th Avenue and Prince Street at 4 p.m.
The construction equipment used to mill off the roadway are called pavement milling machines or cold planers. These machines use a large rotating drum to remove and grind the road surface. The drum consists of scrolls of tool holders. The scrolls are positioned around the drum so that the ground pavement is moved toward the center and can be loaded onto the machine’s conveyor belt. The tool holders can wear out over time and can be broken while milling if highway structures like manholes are encountered while milling.
The tool holders on the drum hold carbide cutters. The cutters can be removed and replaced as they wear out. The amount of wear – and amount of time in between replacement – varies with the type and consistency of the material being milled. Intervals can range from several days – to a few hours.
The drum is enclosed in a housing/scrapper that is used to contain the milled material to be collected and deposited on the conveyor. The spacing of the tool spirals around the drum affect the end surface of the road, with micro-milling having the tightest spacing.
The majority of milling machines use an up-cut setup which means that the drum rotates in the direction opposite of the drive wheel or tracks, (i.e. the work surface feeds into the cut).
Modern machines use a front-loading conveyor system that has the advantage of picking up any material that falls off the conveyor as milling progresses. Water is generally applied to the drum as it spins, because of the heat generated during the milling process. Additionally, water helps control the dust created. In order to control the depth, slopes and profile of the final milled surface many millers now have automatic depth control using lasers, string-lines or other methods to maintain milled surfaces to + or – .20 inches of the target height.
Because of the road work, County 1 is closed from Cottonwood County Road #27 (Third Avenue) in Mountain Lake, stretching north to Highway 30. A detour is now in effect until Tuesday, October 17.
The official detour for County 1 will be Watonwan County Road #5, running north through Butterfield to Highway 30, east of Darfur. One “unofficial” detour in the county includes Cottonwood County Road #29, which goes north out of Mountain Lake past the lake, and continues north to Highway 30, turning to gravel following the intersection with Cottonwood County Road #3. A second “unofficial” route is Cottonwood County Road #8, located east of Mountain Lake. From its intersection with Minnesota State Highway #60 on the west side of the New Vision Elevator, the gravel road continues north to Highway 30. Another option route would be to take Cottonwood County Road #2, located east of Bingham Lake, from Highway 60 north to Highway 30.
Only local traffic will be allowed on County 1 during construction (local traffic means a mailing address of County 1, and the only access to home or business is County 1). All other traffic MUST use the detour route.
In addition, in Mountain Lake, two blocks of sewer line and one block of water line between 3rd Avenue and 6th Avenue have been replaced. The work included the elimination of one block of water main along County 1 between 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue, along with replacing the block of water main between 3rd Avenue and 5th Avenue with new 8″ diameter main. Sewer was also be replaced, with new 12″ lines laid between 3rd Avenue to 6th Avenue, along with reconnecting service to Town’s Edge Auto.
That water and sewer work done by the city and utility was a move to pre-empt any possible future water or sewer issues in the area, as the county does not want any cutting into or digging up of the new concrete.
Below are photos of the work done on County 1 today (Wednesday, August 2) inside the city limits of Mountain Lake, between 6th Avenue and Prince Street:
The official detour for Cottonwood County Road #1 is the one marked in green on the map below:
