BEATRICE – County and township government officials are hoping the supply of gravel and rock for rural roads holds up, this year.  With the closing of one area pit, that leaves fewer options for officials to obtain road material.


Gage County Board Chairman Eric Tiemann says it’s a wait-and-see situation. "I am a little nervous on the material...things are looking a little more bleak. We lost a sand pit over to the west. They're telling us that will be picked up by another one. That remains to be seen. If we look at last year's production, I don't see that happening, So, I guess time will tell. Let's be optimistic and hope.....we're looking at different places, there."


Tiemann was one of the speakers at Thursday night’s annual Gage County Township Association meeting, held at the Veterans Club in Beatrice….attended by representatives from 20 of 24 townships in the county. He said there are still options for obtaining gravel or rock.


"Columbus, Bellwood...Boyden, Alexandria...Boyden's kind of over at Fairbury, Alexandria, Nebraska....possibly a little bit from Belvidere but that's more going west, now."


Gage County Road and Bridge Chairman Terry Jurgens says there were price increases on gravel and rock supplies this year. The county is retaining past policies of allowing townships to swap out some of their gravel allocations for rock, instead. Township officials needing more surface material can also acquire it from the county, at bid prices received by Gage County.


Tiemann urged officials if there are bad conditioned roads that are no longer needed, try to have them abandoned or vacated. He also said the county can assist township officials with clearing problem areas along roads where trees or brush are obstructions.


Gage County Highway Superintendent Mark Kuhnke says the roads department plans on removing several bridges and replacing them with culverts this year. It also has two new bridge match program replacements east of DeWitt and near Cortland.  "We will continue working on the concrete box culverts along Clatonia and DeWitt Roads this spring with an estimated completion of May 1st for those projects. We have nine metal culverts that are on the ground, as of today. We'll be starting to replace those structures. Rockford Road, I know last year we talked about doing a mill and armor coating on that road. When we cored it, engineers didn't like the thickness of what was in the road, so we kind of changed our minds on that. So, we are going with a two-inch mill and a two-inch fill on that project....on (South) 94th....for those two miles."


State funding is also being sought for resurfacing roadway around the east side of Rockford Lake and at Big Indian Recreation area in the southern part of the county.


Kuhnke said area road material pits are planning on opening in mid-March.