What needs to be done to Ice Cave Road?

An engineering consultant will come to Decorah soon to try to figure out what is happening to Ice Cave Road.

The street was closed late last week as the roadbed continues to sink.  County Engineer Lee Bjerke told county supervisors Monday, "Most of the problems (the road) has have come because it's moving." 

The question, of course, is why the roadbed is moving.  County officials previously thought erosion of the Upper Iowa River streambank below the road was causing the problems.  Bjerke says the engineering consultant is looking at two other possible explanations--that big pillars of stone have begun to slide on the underlying shale rock, or that erosion has caused a fissure that rock and other material is falling into.

Bjerke says the consultant he has talked with wants to come to Decorah to take three or four drilling samples.  Depending upon what is discovered, the solution could be anything from putting some fill in the fissure to closing down the road for good.