Federal funding coming to Monroe County to keep roads resilient through severe weather
SPARTA, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX) – We’re coming up on the most active severe weather months of the year in Wisconsin, and extreme weather events can cause significant damage to roadways. As First News at Nine’s Dashal Mentzel explains, one Western Wisconsin county is getting federal funding to help keep its roads resilient to severe weather.
US Senator Tammy Baldwin says more than 500,000 dollars in federal funding has been secured for the Monroe County Highway Department. Senator Baldwin adds the economy and lives depend on proper infrastructure, “I was really proud to partner with Monroe County and the highway department to get this funding so that we can review the resiliency of all the infrastructure and then make plans to make repairs and improvements wherever possible.”
Officials say the money will help in a number of ways, including improving infrastructure at watersheds in the county. Highway Commissioner, David Ohnstad, says high water events have caused over $33 million worth of damage in Monroe County over the last 20 years, “This is focused on county highways and town roads throughout the watershed. then with land conservation and others, we’ll look at upstream land management practices and improvements that we can make to lessen the impact of the start of the storm runoff when it hits the actual bridge or at the culvert.”
Monroe County Land Conservation Department Director, Bob Micheel, says there already are many ideas to help the high-water problems in the county, with the $506,000, the county can begin to act on those ideas, “We can do dams, we can do wetland restoration projects and then, when it gets to the valley floor, we can look at stream restoration projects. If we do our job on the landscape in the watershed, the infrastructure is the winner as far as downstream when it comes to the crossings, the roads, bridges, etc.”
Senator Baldwin and Monroe County hope this funding will help solve the infrastructure issues that have affected the people of Monroe County, “Obviously, the benefit is to the Monroe County residents and ultimately it saves everybody money in the long run.”
In Monroe County, Dashal Mentzel First News at Nine.
This announcement comes after Senator Baldwin announced a $2.6 billion plan to invest in Great Lakes and coastal resiliency through the Baldwin-supported inflation reduction act.
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