Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
The Washington State Department of Transportation is now in its final stages of review for this summer’s Almota Road project between Union Flat Creek and the intersection with State Route 194 near Onecho Bible Church.
“Plans are 95 percent complete,” Dean Cornelison, assistant county engineer, said to county commissioners Monday.
Still, nothing is sure for this year.
Part of the county’s plans now at WSDOT include proposed offer letters to 12 property owners along the road to buy right-of-way space to widen the road from 28 to 34 feet.
The county will need a total of 12 acres along the 3.5 miles of road to be expanded.
A change has already been made to accommodate landowners’ requests to reduce the grade of a hill which will descend from the road into their land.
“They wanted it to remain farmable slopes,” said Cornelison.
Could any of this hold up the whole Almota Four project, pushing it to next summer instead?
“It’s far from certain, but I don’t think there’s gonna be any surprises,” Cornelison said.
The county hopes to get approval to send out the offer letters next week. Informal meetings have been held already with the landowners.
Ultimately, if all is approved, 40 pages of engineer’s plan sheets and 100-150 pages of specifications sheets will be set to go.
Road closed
If and when the project begins in June, work would run until September or October, and the surface will be left as gravel road over the winter to be completed in 2020.
“We’re gonna have to close the road for a good part of harvest,” said Cornelison. “It’s not gonna be pretty.”
He referred to closing the Henning Hill area, a 2.5-mile stretch from Upper Union Flat Road to Stevick Road. Also Klaus Road will be closed to through-traffic.
This section is where the grade is to be cut down by eight feet.
The contractor will move a half-mile worth of eight feet of dirt.
“Unfortunately, construction season is the same as harvest season,” Cornelison said. “We need the soil to be as dry as possible.”
“We hope that it’s dirt,” Cornelison said. “Dirt’s a whole lot easier to move than rock.”
No detour will be marked, due to requirements of a federally-funded project, which deem that any posted detour must have the same road surface type or better.
Nonetheless, ways to get around the closure will include Upper Union Flat Road to Hamilton Hill Road to Highway 194, or Upper Union Flat Road to Stevick Road – both gravel roads.
Cornelison indicated the county will increase maintenance on these alternate routes in the lead-up to the closure.
“We're gonna have to,” Cornelison. “With that increase in traffic, otherwise the roads will get torn up.”
An outstanding wetlands permit also awaits the project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Overall, Cornelison indicated he’s 90 percent certain the work will happen this year. Two possible holdups could be any landowners’ dissatisfaction with offers and possibly too high of bids, especially since the work will go out to bid in May which is late for the construction season.
“But we’d have to have a really good reason not to do it this year,” Cornelison said.
Merge lane
The project will add the first merge lane to a road overseen by Whitman County. It will be a 200-foot length to run from Aeschliman Road onto Almota Road.
Another change will be the speed limit on the curve north of Onecho Church intersecting Longhollow Road. It will change from 50 mph to 35.
Almota Four will be the third stretch of improvement for the 15-mile Almota Road project begun in 2009.
Remaining to be done will be Phase Three, a 3.8- mile segment from Summers Road north.
Once Almota Four is out to bid, the seven-person county engineering department will get to work on the design for Phase Three, expected to begin in 2020.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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