At their most recent meeting, the Kalona City Council agreed to move forward with a project to replace the bridge on Highway 22 inside the city. The bridge is located east of the Highway 1 intersection near the ADM Grain Company. According to Kalona City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh, the current bridge has met its Department of Transportation required time and needed to be either repaired or replaced. Schlabaugh described the work that will be done on the bridge, saying, “We’re going to have some new storm sewer put in, and we may have to do a little bit of relocation of some of our water services. So we got direction from the council to apply for a DOT construction permit and right-of-way.

“The bridge will be completely redone, (with) twin culverts. So it’ll be designed for less of a water impact from some of those flash flood events that we have. So thanks to the Iowa Flood Center and the DOT for working together to come up with a well-designed bridge that’s going to help the residents of Kalona.” Schlabaugh says they will accept bids for the work in February, with construction slated to begin in late spring. The work will be done in one building season, and there will be two lanes open on the highway at all time to minimize the impact on traffic.