Dam job to clog highway

Refurbishing the floodgates on Bull Shoals Dam in north Arkansas will require, for the next 18 months, some patience on the part of residents and the tourists who flock to the lake the dam created.

The $ 4.5 million project to refurbish the dam’s 17 gates will require limiting traffic to one lane on Arkansas 178 crossing the dam through May 2017 as well as periodic shutdowns of both lanes for two days beginning Monday.

Both lanes will be closed to traffic from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Tuesday to accommodate installation of

the equipment that will be used on the project, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department said. The move will close one of the two routes into and out of Bull Shoals.

Once the equipment is in place, one lane will be open while the work is performed, according to the department. The single- lane closure is scheduled through May 2017.

Additional road closures of up to two days will be scheduled about every eight weeks to move equipment as work progresses, according to the department and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is spearheading the project.

The lane closures and periodic shutdowns stand to inconvenience residents who use the bridge, as well as tourists who flock to the popular lake, Marion County Judge Terry Ott said. But it is a necessary inconvenience, he said.

“If the work has to be done, there’s nothing you can do about it,” Ott said. “But it will be manageable.”

The dam, which provides flood control and hydroelectricity production, began operation in 1951 and created Bull Shoals Lake, which extends into Missouri and is a tourism destination.

Officials at the Corps’ Mountain Home project office

said in a news release that they regret “any inconvenience this may cause” but added the closure has been coordinated with local emergency and law enforcement agencies.

“If you are traveling in this area, please expect delays, obey flagmen, and operate cautiously around equipment and work crews,” the news release said.

But Ott said he didn’t anticipate too much of a problem, particularly with the single-lane closure. Traffic lights will be installed at both ends of the open lane to help synchronize traffic throughout the work.

He acknowledged that some people traveling from Bull Shoals, when both lanes are shut down, will have a circuitous route of about 30 miles through Flippin, Gassville and Midway if they were traveling to areas such as Lakeview, which is 4 miles from Bull Shoals when the highway is operating normally.

About 2,900 people travel on the route daily, on average, according to Highway and Transportation Department data. But that average includes summer tourist traffic.

“You have only a few tourists now,” Ott said. “This is the best time for the work to be done.”

More information is available from the Mountain Home project office of the Army Corps of Engineers at (870) 425-2700.