Central ND News

U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer visited Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) on Wednesday to review the progress of the ongoing reconstruction efforts on a six-mile section of the South Unit Scenic Loop Drive. The road has been closed for five years due to sinkholes and landslides that rendered it impassable.

“What’s most impressive to me is the incredible care that went into both the planning and certainly the engineering, which is very impressive, but then the execution of the project that does two things in my view,” said Cramer. “It maintains the integrity of the infrastructure, which keeps the traveling public safe and allows this spectacular place to be open to them. More importantly, it maintains the integrity of the natural beauty, which is what the traveling public is here to see. It's great progress and I’m looking forward to it all being done sometime next year.”

The reconstruction project includes repairing eroded sections of road, improving stormwater drainage, expanding walkways, adding seating and wayside exhibits, and repaving roadside pull-outs. The project is expected to be completed by late 2024 with plans to reopen the road by summer 2025.

In October 2019, then-U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt visited TRNP with Cramer to assess infrastructure repair needs. In 2020, Cramer co-sponsored the Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA), signed into law by President Donald Trump. The act included provisions from the Restore Our Parks Act aimed at addressing maintenance backlogs across federal lands, including TRNP. Following GAOA's passage, Cramer announced that funding from GAOA would be used for repairing South Loop Drive. TRNP requested $47 million in federal funding for this project.