first on decorahnews.com: Might Winneshiek County offer Ice Cave Road to the City of Decorah?

The future of Ice Cave Road is more uncertain than ever.

Winneshiek County staffers had been studying a plan to remove some of the fallen cliff below Ice Cave Road, build a new base, and reinstall the cliff.  But County Engineer Lee Bjerke says the proposal has been vetoed by the Iowa DNR because it would require filling in part of the Upper Iowa River riverbed below the road.

That leaves either closing the road or doing whatever patching possible as the two likeliest options going forward.  County supervisors have discussed those possibilities and Bjerke says there's not a lot of enthusiasm for them.

One possible third option--the county could offer to give the City of Decorah the county's part of Ice Cave Road.  Bjerke says the county doesn't need the road, but maybe the city does.  That, of course, would place the full financial responsibility for maintaining the road with the city--and city officials might not be enthusiastic about that, either.  In the meantime, the idea of extensive repairs to Ice Cave Road appears to have been dropped.