Date:
Friday, April 10, 2009
Contact:
Jeff Adamson, North Central Region Communications Manager, Wenatchee, (509) 667-2815, (509) 669-8778 Cell. E-mail: adamsoj@wsdot.wa.gov
Mike Andreini, Project Engineer (509)667-2860 andreim@wsdot.wa.gov
WENATCHEE – A $1.1 million contract has been awarded by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to Pipkin Construction of Wenatchee to repair sections of US 97 Blewett Pass severely damaged by January storms. Blewett Pass was closed for 10 days by washouts and mudslides at four separate locations, reopening after temporary emergency repairs were completed at a cost of $1.3 million.
“Now, we’re doing the permanent repairs,” said Project Engineer Mike Andreini, “Besides repaving and major culvert repairs, the big job is reinforcing the washed out creek and riverbanks. We’re going to place “rip rap”, rocks weighing several tons each, along the banks to protect the highway from the next flood.”
Terms of the emergency contract awarded Tuesday, require Pipkin crews to begin work April 27. The contract will generate at least 11 new jobs and is funded by a disaster emergency maintenance contract. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) will reimburse WSDOT under the Federal Emergency declaration for the December and January storms.
Pipkin is also the firm that completed the emergency repairs in January which allowed the highway to reopen.
On January 6th, an overflowing Peshastin Creek, three miles from the Big Y junction with US 2, washed away 225 feet of the northbound US 97 lane. Five miles further south, where Ruby Creek joins Peshastin Creek, the flood scoured out a 40-foot hole around a 12-foot pipe arch, 35 feet below the roadway, undermining 20 feet of pavement. Near the Bonanza Creek Campground, another five miles further south, a 200-foot-wide by 6-foot-high slide of mud, rocks and trees came down, crushing culverts and washing out shoulders and nearly 1,000 feet of the northbound roadbed. Swauk Creek created a new channel under the snow alongside 600 feet of the highway, approximately 14 miles south of the Blewett Pass summit near Liberty, washing out the shoulder and exposing buried utilities, including a critical cross-state fiber-optic cable.
Photos of the winter storm damage and emergency repair work are posted on the WSDOT Flickr Web page: www.flickr.com/photos/wsdot/sets/72157612297436920/
More information about the US 97 flood repair work can be found on the project Web page: www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/US97/BlewettPassEmRepSt2/default.htm
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