SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) –The fight continues. Not only are we losing our battle with mother nature, we’re also losing our fight with potholes.

You probably won’t be surprised when I say it’s been a record year for fixing potholes, but guess what, the fight is far from over and there’s a reason for that.

That’s the sound we are all getting tired of hearing.

“I think we’re all starting to get a little irritable even our employees and operators,” Public Works Director Dustin Hansen said.

Almost everywhere you look on any street and you can find a pothole, even though the city has been constantly patching them up.

“We’ve completed almost 3,000 requests already this year and we’re only three months in, so we are on pace to have a record year,” Hansen said.

It’s probably not going to get any better either, Hansen says, until the asphalt plants they contract with open up.

“We’ve talked to both of them here in town and they are looking at middle of April or first week of May,” Hansen said.

Until that happens, Hansen says they’ll have to keep using what they’ve been using which is not a permanent hot mix.

As a result crews have had to fill the same potholes more than once.

“We’re getting caught up, but now moisture is coming in eventually we’re going to see some more potholes and it’s not that permanent hot mix so some of that material could come back out,” Hansen said.

Hansen says they’ve used between 700-800 tons of their own asphalt to fix potholes so far this winter.