West Co., an Airway Heights-based transportation contractor, has received a $9.9 million contract to reconstruct and realign an 11.5-mile stretch of a rural Montana road.

The project is to take place on Petty Creek Road, which extends south from Interstate 90 just east of Alberton, Mont., about 28 miles west of Missoula.

Petty Creek currently is a gravel U.S. Forest Service access road, says West Co. project manager Nate McKinley. The approximately 18-mile-long roadway winds through the Lolo National Forest and connects to U.S. Highway 12 in the south, he says. It provides access to rural residences and Forest Service land, some of which is designated for public hiking, camping, and fishing, McKinley says.

The four-phase project is to include the widening and realigning of the roadway to straighten it, as well as the installation of several new culverts and drainage structures where it crosses mountain creeks and streams, McKinley says.

West Co. also will reconstruct a 67-foot-long, concrete girder-style bridge where the road crosses its namesake, Petty Creek, he says.

The first three portions of the project also are to include paving the road, he adds, totaling about 10 miles.

Work is scheduled to begin in mid-July, and the project is expected to be completed in October of 2013, McKinley says. He adds that the Montana Department of Transportation still is working to obtain rights-of-way needed for the project's later phases. He says that process could be finished this year, although work on those later phases wouldn't begin until next summer's construction season or later.

McKinley says that West Co. currently is working on another project in western Montana near Superior, about 60 miles west of Missoula, and the company has completed several past projects for the Montana DOT.

For the Petty Creek project, McKinley says that the company likely will hire about half of its labor force in western Montana, and some of its employees will travel to the project site during construction.

West Co. employs 12 people here and was founded in the early 1990s.