Repairs to Riverfront Trail in Sioux City will be costly and take until next year to complete.
City and state transportation department officials are giving an urgent request for people to obey barricades on a three-mile stretch of the trail west of Chris Larsen Park to Riverside Park. Offenders could face a $10,000 fine.
The Iowa Department of Transportation in a Friday press conference estimated the total cost to fix a mile along the Big Sioux River and Interstate 29 at around $8 million. The trail was damaged after historic river levels of the Big Sioux River in late June.
DOT engineer Jessica Felix said the work is challenging.
“The slope is so unstable, and as the Big Sioux recedes, we have scour damages that we cannot always see with the naked eye. And we dumped a load of rock, (then) 30 seconds later, 2500 tons of rock ended up in the Big Sioux River,” Felix said.
Emergency repairs are expected to be completed this fall, and Felix says part of the trail could reopen for pedestrians sometime next year.