County Highway E Culvert Failure Closes Merton Route; County Advises "Just Don't Go There" Until Further Notice

MERTON — The Waukesha County Department of Public Works closed a stretch of County Highway E on Monday after a box culvert failed beneath the roadway, opening a 30-foot ravine alongside the pavement and prompting county officials to describe the situation in terms usually reserved for situations they would rather not describe at all.

The culvert, which carries a tributary of the Oconomowoc River beneath the highway between County Q and County VV, gave way sometime before dawn Monday. By the time DPW crews arrived at 6:15 a.m., the roadbed above the failure had dropped roughly 18 inches and the shoulder had begun sloughing into the new ravine, which county engineers measured at 30 feet deep and, as of Tuesday, still deepening.

County Highway Commissioner's office spokesperson Renata Voss confirmed the closure runs the full mile between Q and VV, with local access maintained from both the north and south ends for residents who live along the corridor. Through traffic has none. "If you are not going to a specific driveway on County E, there is no reason to be on County E," Voss said. "We would ask people to just not go there."

Asked to clarify whether "just don't go there" was official county guidance or a personal aside, Voss said both.

Worse Than Initial Assessments

A Monday afternoon inspection by county engineers found the damage "worse than initial assessments," a phrase Voss said was chosen after the department's first choice, "worse than we'd hoped," was deemed insufficiently specific for a press release. The revised assessment noted erosion extending roughly 12 feet beyond the original culvert footprint on the downstream side, which engineers attributed to the tributary finding "a new preferred route" sometime overnight.

Repair timelines remain under review. County officials would not estimate a reopening date, though Voss noted the department has ordered a replacement culvert section and is "watching the ravine" in the meantime. Cost estimates are similarly pending, with the county citing the need to first determine "how much more ravine there's going to be."

"If you are not going to a specific driveway on County E, there is no reason to be on County E. We would ask people to just not go there."

— Renata Voss, Waukesha County DPW spokesperson

The Detour

The posted detour routes commuters between Lake Keesus and the Oconomowoc River corridor north along County Q to County VV, adding an estimated 9 to 14 minutes depending on traffic at the VV intersection, which does not have a turn lane and, as of Tuesday morning, had not yet acquired one. County officials said a temporary turn lane is "under consideration" but not funded.

Merton resident and Lake Keesus-area commuter Dale Osthoff, 46, said he has already adjusted his morning routine to leave 15 minutes earlier, a figure he arrived at by leaving 10 minutes earlier on Monday and being 5 minutes late anyway. "The detour's fine," Osthoff said. "It's the two guys ahead of me who don't know it's a detour yet that are the problem."

Retired city Department of Public Works supervisor Bob Krueger, who does not have jurisdiction over county roads but reviewed photos of the failure at this newspaper's request, called the ravine "a serious piece of erosion" and compared it favorably to a 2003 washout on Highway J he remembered "being about half this good." Krueger noted the barricades were spaced appropriately but declined to rate the closure on his usual 10-point scale, saying a culvert failure "isn't really a lane closure situation, it's a geology situation," and he does not review geology.

Not The First Time

County officials acknowledged the closure adds to a run of infrastructure disruptions this year, following the $24 million Waukesha County Airport runway project that closed again four days after reopening, and the East Avenue roundabout, which remains, per this newspaper's tracking, without a documented successful navigation. Voss said the culvert failure was unrelated to either project. "This one's just a culvert," she said. "It's not a whole thing. It's just a culvert that failed."

The county has not announced a timeline for reopening County Highway E. Residents seeking updates were directed to a county webpage that, as of Tuesday afternoon, listed the closure's status as "closed."