MARSHALL — Road work continues this fall on a 45-mile long stretch of Highway 91 in Lyon, Murray and Nobles counties. However, a news release from the Minnesota Department of Transportation said the goal is still to have the highway open by Nov. 15.

A detour on Highway 91 south of Russell was removed Tuesday, MnDOT said. Highway 91 would be open from the intersection with Minnesota Highway 23 to the intersection of U.S. Highway 14. At the same time, a new detour would go into effect in Murray County north of Lake Wilson.

The new detour will be in place until mid-November, MnDOT said.

The construction project on Highway 91 includes bridge and box culvert replacements that would mean closing the road to traffic. The segment in Murray County, between Murray County Road 10 and Murray County Road 20, needed to be closed for three culvert replacements, MnDOT said. Two other detours in Nobles County — one between Adrian and Lismore, and one between Lismore and Lake Wilson — will stay in place until a stable pavement can be applied to the roadway.

The segment of the project south of Russell went through several delays this summer. The delays were caused by a combination of factors, including bad weather and scheduling by the project contractor, said MnDOT project supervisor Robert Sneller.

The Highway 91 construction project was a two-year contract, said Sneller and Bob Williams, resident engineer with the MnDOT District 7 office in Windom. Rather than doing bridge and culvert repair in one year and paving the next, the project contractor was doing additional work this year.

“There’s disadvantages and advantages on that,” Williams said. Overall, construction on the project was ahead of schedule, but the extra work was continuing into November.

In Tuesday’s news release, MnDOT said Highway 91 needs to be open by Nov. 15, or the contractor will be fined a penalty for each day the highway is not open. Central Specialties, Inc., of Alexandria, was awarded a contract for the project, with a bid of over $18.45 million.

The project is expected to be complete by June, MnDOT said.