BLUE EARTH– Representatives from District 7 of the Minnesota Department of Transportation made their annual stop at the Faribault County Board of Commissioners meeting on Tuesday to provide an update on the work being done in District 7, and more specifically, Faribault County.

“District 7 is comprised of 13 counties. There are over 3,200 lane miles, 475 bridges and more than 9,700 culverts in District 7,” principal transportation planner, Angie Piltaver, told the commissioners. “The population of the district is 290,000-plus people which is about five percent of the state’s total population.”

A graph provided by Piltaver showed the funding targets for District 7 over the next 10 years.

“The next four years are funded,” Piltaver explained. “The remaining six years are planned but there could be a shift in projects which would affect the funding.”

Looking ahead, among the projects planned to be undertaken sometime between 2030 and 2035 include work on the 10 bridges in Faribault County that span Interstate 90.

“Some of the work will be on the approach panels and/or guardrails,” Piltaver commented. “There may also be some overlay work done on the bridge decks themselves.”

According to Piltaver, one of the biggest upcoming projects in the area will be the Highway 22/109 project in Wells.

“The bids for that project will be let in October,” she shared.

Included in plans for 2028 is the reconstruction of Highway 169 through the town of Elmore.

“There will be two detours during that project,” Piltaver noted. “One will be a five-ton detour and one will be a 10-ton detour for larger trucks. The five-ton detour will be shorter.”

Discussion also came up on the timeline for the work on Highway 22 from Wells south to the Iowa border.

“It is not on the schedule until 2029,” Piltaver said. “But it is being prepared to be delivered. What that means is that the pieces are being put in place that it could be worked on as soon as next summer if funding would somehow become available.”

Piltaver concluded her presentation by reminding the board that people can keep up to date with the projects by going online at mmdot.gov/d7/projects.

In other business, the board:

— Approved training requests from Vincent Do and Jacob Petitt of the Sheriff’s Department to attend Law Enforcement Labor Services training.

— Approved the request of School Resource Officer (SRO) Barry Meyers to attend basic SRO training.

— Approved the request of Kasta Amundson of the Sheriff’s Department to take classes for Public Safety Answering Points as part of her telecommunicator core competencies requirements.

— Gave approval to Megan Cook of the Faribault County Extension Office to attend the 2025 All Extension Conference.