The Ohio Department of Transportation's Oct. 31 deadline for completing a resurfacing project on U.S. 23 in Clay Township has come and gone. Yet drivers must still navigate through a maze of orange construction barrels.

Why?

“Like everything else we do, it's behind schedule,” ODOT District 9 Public Information Officer Kathleen Fuller said on Friday. “But as long as we have good weather, we should wrap it up in a couple of weeks.”

The delay was caused by a variety of factors, including rain, additional joint repair work on the Clay overpass and an unexpected problem with a small bridge on Private Road, Fuller said.

The bridge is near Feurt Hill Road and had major structural problems.

“We had to decide if we wanted to invest money into it,” Fuller said. “So we decided to backfill the road with concrete and close the bridge.”

She said ODOT made that decision because the road wasn't used that much. It wasn't a county or township road so the bridge was removed.

ODOT started the $4.6 million project in the spring after awarding the contract to Shelly Construction of Thornville.

Besides resurfacing the roadway, workers are replacing some guard rail sections, solving some drainage issues and improving the median.

In a related issue, ODOT plans to finish resurfacing and bridge repair work in Piketon near the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant this weekend. That job also had an Oct. 31 deadline.

At the request of the United States Enrichment Corp., ODOT will not open the U.S. 23 ramp into the plant, Fuller said.

USEC spokesman Jack Williams said the company plans to open the ramp in February or March.

“We're going to do some upgrades to the security portals,” he said. “They are in need of improvements and this will give us an opportunity to do that.”

Traffic will use the U.S. 32 entrance at Shyville Road instead.

The Shelly-Sands Construction Company of Zanesville was awarded the $4 million contract for that work.

Construction started in February.

JEFF BARRON can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 236.