extend US 8 to the original eastern terminus in Michigan on internal maps. The December 31, 2004, edition of their Official State Trunk Highway System Maps shows this section as a "mapped corridor". In the late 1970s, with ongoing construction and completion of the I-35W freeway in Minnesota, US 8 was routed along I-35W; US 8 was truncated again by 1981 to its current terminus in Forest Lake. The section in New Brighton is currently known as Old Highway 8. WisDOT built a bypass of the city of Rhinelander during the early 1990s; the new highway was constructed south of town as a new two-lane highway that opened to traffic by 1993. The former route through downtown Rhinelander and near Clear and George lakes was redesignated as Business US 8 (Bus. US 8). 21st century In 2002, US 8 was widened from two lanes to four lanes with a grass median between North Rifle Road and WIS 47 near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. At the time, officials with WisDOT had plans to extend the four-lane divided highway as far west as US 51 near Tomahawk. Problems related to wetlands in the construction area and bad weather pushed completion of the project back almost a year. Contractors had to install metal sheeting to stabilize the marshy ground. Originally scheduled to end in late 2002, the project did not finish until August 2003. The delays and additional work increased the price tag of the project from the original $4.5 million (equivalent to $ in ) to $6.0 million (equivalent to $ in ). A section of the project was only designed for speeds for safety reasons. The design also allowed planners to limit the amount of land needed for the expansion. Bill and Jerri Osberg sued the state and seven other parties in April 2003 over runoff from the construction, claiming that it killed hundreds of trees and polluted ponds on their property. Later investigation uncovered damage to wildlife habitat in the Wisconsin River. Included in the original lawsuit were six individual WisDOT employees, the primary contractor and a local pet supply company. The court of appeals partially upheld a ruling by the district court dismissing the employees and the contractor from the lawsuit in March 2006. The pet supply company was reinstated in the case by the appeals court. The couple settled their claims, and the state pursued the matter against Pagel Construction