The Michigan Department of Transportation is closing boat access Monday on a section of the Grand River in Dimondale.
Construction crews are currently undertaking a $44 million repair of parts of I-96, including replacing two elevated bridges that pass over the river and Billwood Highway in Eaton County.
Part of the project involves hoisting concrete beams that are more than 100 feet long and weigh about 70 tons.
Mike Meyer is a Projects and Contracts engineer with MDOT. He said crews will be lifting the beams over the river and closing boat access as a safety precaution.
“We can’t set beams while river traffic is active underneath there, and so we got to close the river during basically that time period, so we can get the beams across the river and then set up on the piers,” Meyer said.
Meyer said restricting river travel is comparable to closing a road to perform maintenance on an elevated bridge.
"We just don't want to have any traffic underneath it, whether it be boat traffic, pedestrian traffic or vehicle traffic whenever we're doing any of these types of operations," Meyer said.
He added the construction team has notified a nearby kayaking service about the river closure. Workers will also set up message boards to warn boaters to steer clear of the intersection.
“We will also have a buoy system that’ll be stretched across the river basically blocking that river traffic during that time,” Meyer said.
The portion of the river is expected to reopen by the end of the day Aug. 18.