Amid budget cuts and the rising cost of materials, the Nebraska Department of Roads said it would consider construction delays on projects such as the four-lane U.S. 77 bypass around Wahoo.

Mike Owen, the U.S. 77 bypass project manager, said Wahoo officials were notified two weeks ago that construction on the $18 million project could be delayed until 2012 — five years past its initial start date of summer 2007.

The four-lane expressway will be a link between Lincoln and Fremont and will carry traffic around Wahoo and over a dam — the 640-acre Lake Wanahoo — upon which construction is scheduled to start north of Wahoo next year.

Owen said the department was aware of its fiscal limitations a few months back. In the past, the department operated on an annual budget of about $380 million, which was recently reduced to an estimated $300 million, Owen said.

Couple a smaller budget with the high price of materials like steel, and the department needed to scale back its project load, he said.

“It pretty much comes down to not having enough money for all the roads projects we’d like to do,” Owen said.

Wahoo Mayor Daryl Reitmeier said he has many safety concerns for his developing town of 4,000 if the bypass is postponed five years.

“There’s an awful lot of traffic going through our community at this time,” Reitmeier said. “There aren’t any pedestrian walks or turning lanes and we have a new ethanol plant and hospital that will bring more traffic through here.”

Owen said about 9,000 vehicles travel through downtown Wahoo each day. Reitmeier predicts those numbers will increase substantially once construction on the $50 million Wahoo Ethanol LLC plant begins this summer and the $22 million Saunders County Community Hospital opens next year.

“I don’t know if any of this counts into (the roads department’s) assessment,” Reitmeier said. “I know they’re under a budget crunch, so all we want to do is sit down and talk and maybe together come up with a solution to get that date moved back up.”

Owen said he and other roads officials will meet with Wahoo leaders Wednesday to discuss each side’s concerns.

“We know getting the bypass completed is important for Wahoo,” he said. “We’ll listen, but we have certain things we have to spend money on. If we build the Wahoo bypass, then we’ll have to decide to take money away from other projects.”

The department also is considering construction delays on other projects, Owen said. U.S. 75 between Plattsmouth and Bellevue, U.S. 81 between York and Columbus and the south beltway around Lincoln are additional projects that might be pushed back.

“All those projects are competing for the same money and they’re all examined the same way and together,” he said. “It’s important to note that nothing is set in stone at this point.”

Rich Ruby, District 1 engineer for the roads department, said the bypass could have been built years ago.

“It’s kind of an ironic situation, because we were ready to go with the bypass six years ago, but then we decided to wait for construction on the dam (Lake Wanahoo),” Ruby said.

According to Ruby, building the bypass would have meant building a large bridge. When Lake Wanahoo came seriously into play in the late 1990s, the department realized it could build the bypass atop the dam and offered to put the bridge money toward the dam’s construction costs.

It was a good deal for both sides — less work for roads crews and more money for the dam project, led by the Lower Platte North Natural Resources District — but Ruby said it also meant construction on the bypass would have to wait for the dam to be built.

“So for several years that’s where we were, waiting for them to get funding,” Ruby said. “So it’s ironic because now we don’t have funding.”

John Miyoshi, general manager for the NRD in Wahoo, said the bypass delay won’t mean more delays for Lake Wanahoo. In fact, Miyoshi said he should know in July whether the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources will fund the project.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier this year gave its OK to build a dam for Lake Wanahoo in accordance with state standards, rather than the Corps’ standards, Miyoshi said. This reduced the project’s price tag from $34 million to $22 million.

“If all goes to plan, we would actually start moving dirt a year from right now,” Miyoshi said, adding that his latest plans call for the lake’s completion in 2009.

Reach Jonnie Taté Finn at 473-7395 or tfinn@journalstar.com.