Engineer’s office secures $2.8M in contract rock hauling for next spring

Jasper County has secured more than $2.8 million worth of contract rock for its gravel roads system this upcoming spring.

County Engineer Michael Frietsch presented the rock hauling contract with the board of supervisors at their Dec. 2 meeting. The county only received one bidder. Martin Marietta of Des Moines bid $2,827,375 for the contract rock, which Frietsch said covers every single township in Jasper County.

“It averages out to about 130-131 tons per mile overall,” Frietsch said, noting the previous year’s regrades tend to get about 300 tons per mile. “…We’re focusing on those so we don’t lose them. Since we did that work we don’t want to lose them. Then we’ll look at the (farm-to-market) system routes that are gravels.”

Other priority roads are those connected to incorporated areas, cities, other counties and areas with high traffic. Then crews will start going down the routes where multiple houses reside. Dead ends will be taken care of by in-house crews. The county still intends to use spot rock when applicable.

“Right now what we have left in our (FY 2026) budget is about this bid amount,” Frietsch said, noting other funds can be shifted over to cover other areas, too.

The idea, he added, is to get as much rock as possible and as quickly as possible right out of the gate at the beginning of the spring season. Frietsch said he is a month ahead of schedule when it comes to planning and acquiring rock. He confirmed the county would be ready in case there was an early thaw.

“For whatever reason we have a great February and it’s dry and we have nothing really looking like a problem in March … We got started in the middle of March last year. No reason why we couldn’t get started in the first or second weekend of March,” Frietsch said. “This will help us, too. Now we have this lined up.”

The bid from Martin Marietta accounts for approximately 122,000 tons of rock. Each township will get anywhere from 2,640 tons to 7,620 tons of rock.