Pothole reservoir — Motorists traveling on Highway H Southeast between Potholes Reservoir and Othello should expect delays due to road reconstruction.
Grant County Engineer Dave Bren said work began earlier this month. The cost to rebuild 4.67 miles is about $2.8 million, with about $2.5 million coming from a federal grant. Road H Southeast runs south from State Route 252 near the Mardon Resort.
“It is a collector’s item and is used a lot,” said Bren, and was therefore eligible for government funding.
The existing surface will be excavated, the pavement resurfaced if necessary and the road repaved. Bren said some sections of the pavement have subsided and when that happens, the base course in those sections will need to be replaced.
County construction crews will begin work on G.7 Northwest Road south of Quincy before the end of August. The road connects H Northwest Road to White Trail Road. Approximately 2.2 miles will be paved.
The road will be converted from gravel to asphalt. Bren said workers will grade the existing road, add more base material if needed, then apply two layers of asphalt and rocks. It’s known as the “gravel-to-oil project.”
The estimated cost is approximately $400,000.
“Everything is financed locally,” Bren said.
County workers have other demands on their time and equipment, Bren said, and construction of Road G.7 is not scheduled until after other projects are completed.
“When you process gravel into oil, you have to wait until the equipment is available,” he said.
County workers are in the process of applying gravel to roads south of Warden and east of State Route 17. Work began earlier this week and is expected to take about two weeks. Gravel sealing on roads near Royal City is complete for the year.
A project undertaken earlier this summer to widen and repave roads around the Gorge Amphitheater is proceeding as planned, Bren said, although the full impact will not be felt until work on the Vantage Bridge is completed.
Sections of Silica Road and West Baseline Road were widened and turning lanes were added. Road 1 Northwest was repaved. Bren said the project and improved safety measures at the amphitheater have made driving in the area easier on concert weekends.
Work on the Vantage Bridge will result in traffic being diverted toward the gorge, he said, so the full impact of the road improvements will not be felt until the project is completed.
About another week of work remains on a chip-sealing project along State Route 26 from Vantage to Royal City. Motorists should expect pilot vehicles and flag-controlled traffic through the construction site, Sebastian Moraga, press secretary for the Washington Department of Transportation, wrote in an earlier news release.
For the rest of the summer, workers will be putting finishing touches, such as striping, on SR 26 and other chip seal projects in Grant, Chelan, Douglas and Okanogan counties, Moraga said.
A six-month project to remove some rocks along the bluff north of Soap Lake along SR 17 is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month. Since February, workers have been removing loose rocks, securing them to the bluff and installing steel netting to catch loose rocks. Traffic restrictions will remain in place until the work is completed.
There will be 20-minute traffic delays in the construction zone. Drivers will be stopped for 20 minutes, traffic will be able to continue in both directions, after which the road will be closed for 20 minutes. Loads over 12 feet wide are prohibited during work hours.
Speaking of the Vantage Bridge, work to replace the bridge deck will continue through October. Monday through Friday, traffic will be limited to one lane 24 hours a day. That changes after Labor Day, when traffic will be limited to one lane on weekends and during the work week. The bridge project is expected to take three years.
