SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) Officials say there may be a delay in starting repair work on a bridge that spans the Big Sioux River, connecting Sioux City to North Sioux City, S.D.

The anticipated five-month closure of the Military Road bridge may not happen until 2019, the Sioux City Journal reported. The city originally slotted the work to begin this year but said a languishing permit process through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could push back the start date.

Sioux City submitted a required permit application to the Corps in February to re-deck the bridge. But the Corps ran into funding issues that hampered its ability to approve and review the permits, leaving the city's permit application backlogged among several other project permits, Sioux City senior civil engineer Brittany Anderson said.

Sioux City has offered an agreement that would allow it to submit its own funding to speed up the process, but has yet to hear back on that offer, Anderson said.

“We're going to have to look at when the permit comes in, when the project comes out for bid and when it comes out for the schedule,' she said.

The bridge repair is one of two stages in a 10-month, $5 million project along Military Road. The second stage includes a full reconstruction of the road from the bridge to Riverside Boulevard. Funding for the bridge project, an estimate of $3 million total, will come from Sioux City and the Iowa and South Dakota departments of transportation.

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