Date:  Thursday, July 16, 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 $586,473.00 contract has been awarded by the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to Pipkin Construction Inc. of Wenatchee to repair US 97 Blewett Pass where it was severely damaged by January storms. This final contract will replace a failed retaining wall for Tronsen Creek near the Bonanza Campground beginning August 17, when stream levels have receded and the "fish window" opens.

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. Another $1.1 million of permanent repairs were completed between April 27 and June 30.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) will reimburse WSDOT under the Federal Emergency declaration for the December and January storms.

An overflowing Peshastin Creek, three miles from the Big Y junction with US 2, washed away 225 feet of the northbound US 97 lane on January 6. Five miles further south, where Ruby Creek joins Peshastin Creek, the flood scoured away 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 crushed culverts and washed out road 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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