Crews Continue Roadwork on Billings South Side as Some Neighbors Bristle Dust | Local News

“We know how long summer lasts when you have construction work in your backyard,” said Debi Meling, director of public works for Billings. “It’s very disturbing and it’s dirty and it’s hard to live with.”

In the past summers, the city has closed or restricted traffic on arteries like Grand Avenue and Central Avenue while crews have widened the street or built roundabouts, disrupting access to businesses and neighborhoods.

Each time, city officials met with businesses and landowners beforehand to ensure that their concerns would be heard and, where possible, addressed. Fuhrmann said he had been in regular contact with a number of city officials all summer, but said it had done him no good.

“It’s like talking to a door,” he said.

The city staff tried to be understanding, but explained that there was not much to do.

Construction crews sprayed the dirt roads around the Fuhrmann property with magnesium chloride and watered the assembly area regularly. Magnesium chloride is a type of dust collector commonly used on dirt and gravel roads.

In the construction area itself, crews watered the road twice a day every day all summer, said Tyler Westrope, the city’s project manager for the Hallowell Lane work.

“I feel like the entrepreneur is doing a reasonable job,” he said of KLE.