Award of five school-access road construction contracts totaling nearly half a million dollars on Indian reservations in North Dakota and South Dakota was announced today by the Department of the Interior.
In North Dakota, Delzer Construction Company of Selby, South Dakota, received an $85,652.74 contract for 11.2 miles of road in the western section of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in Sioux County. The road will be improved to meet adequate standards for all-weather travel needs, and will comprise a section of a bus route for transportation of children to the Becker Day School. Upon completion of the road, the responsibility for its maintenance will be taken over by Sioux County.
Also slated for improvement to meet travel needs of reservation residents for farm-to-market travel, school bus transportation, and mail routes, are 3.1 miles of the Martin Lake Road on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation, 1.8 miles of the Crow Hill Road, and 3.2 miles of the East-West Road on the Fort Totten Indian Reservation, all in North Dakota. Archie Campbell and Joe Mayo &Son, a partnership of New Rockford, North Dakota, submitted the successful low bid of $117,034.37.
On the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota, a $107,132.33 contract for 11.5 miles of road was awarded to Bober Construction Company, Minot, North Dakota. The project begins at Lost Bridge on the Little Missouri River and runs northerly to a junction with the road to Mandaree where a day school and subagency headquarters are maintained for the section of the reservation lying west of the Missouri River. The road under this contract is on the route from Dickinson to New Town, and to the Tioga oil fields.
In South Dakota, a $105,796.84 school-access contract on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation to provide an all-weather road from U. S. Highway 212, near Red Elm, north to the Iron Lightning Indian community and Indian Day School in the Moreau River Valley was awarded to Roy Kindt of Winner, South Dakota. The contract calls for the grading, draining, and crushed-gravel surfacing of 9.4 miles of road, Ziebach County and Red Elm Township have agreed to take over maintenance responsibility for this road upon completion of its improvement by the Indian Bureau.
An $80,595.21 contract for eight miles of the Cedar Creek Road on the Lower Brule Indian Reservation in Stanley County; South Dakota was awarded to Johnson Brothers, Inc., of Pierre, South Dakota. The work is a part of the improvement of some 43 miles of the Cedar Creek Road, extending from the Lower Brule community, north of Reliance, South Dakota, to a connection in the northwest corner of the reservation to a Lyman County road leading to U. S. Route No. 83 and on to Pierre, South Dakota. Besides benefiting mail delivery, farm and ranching operations, and education of Indian children in a large area along the south side of the Missouri River in Lyman and Stanley Counties, this road will also have recreational value. Eventually it will provide access to most of the south shoreline of the impounded lake that will be created when the Big Bend Dam across the Missouri River is completed.
