Northbound traffic on Ohio 7 will grind to a stop for a time at the Washington Street intersection Monday so a contractor can run ground-penetrating radar under the northbound lanes.

But don’t worry, Steubenville City Engineer Mike Dolak said the delay will be brief — no more than 15 minutes — and will take place between 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

He said they need to stop traffic so a contractor can safely walk that stretch of the highway with a radar unit to make sure voids they’d found under the pavement there were filled when they pumped grout into the holes about a month ago.

He said they’ve used ground-penetrating radar before, under the pavement on John Scott Highway, and said it’s a noninvasive procedure, “non-destructive.”

“There aren’t many ways to check for voids under the pavement without having to dig it up and repave it,” Dolak said. “We’re trying to see if we filled the void or not, or if there’s a void in other areas.”

He said they spotted the problem in early December.

“We noticed pavement had settled in that particular area,” Dolak said. “We closed the lane to traffic and did some core borings and realized there was a void between 3 feet and 4 feet deep in the northbound curb lane.”