Round and round we go

Six roundabout locations announced

Washington State Department of Transportation unveiled its revised plans to the Commissioners at Monday's work session.  Six roundabouts are being considered for a stretch of Highway 101 between Sequim and Port Angeles, and they fall into two categories:

Near term:

• Taylor Cutoff Road

• Mill Road

Long term:

• Carlsborg Road

• Joslin Road

• Old Olympic Highway

Five roundabouts are being considered for Carlsborg, with a sixth where Old Olympic Highway joins Highway 101.

According to WSDOT Region Administrator Steve Roark, the additional six roundabouts will only add 12 seconds of travel time to the 17-minute trip between Sequim and Port Angeles. 

Other changes are planned for the Highway 101 corridor, too. The Morse Creek Curve median will be extended, and the ramps at River Road and Sequim Avenue will receive sidewalk and crosswalk improvements.

Carlsborg is seeing the majority of planned WSDOT projects.

A 9-day closure to replace the 100-year-old Highway 101 Elwha River Bridge has been scheduled to begin on July 12th. Traffic between Port Angeles and Forks will detour via Highways 112 and 113, which adds about 10 miles or 20 minutes.

The new bridge, slightly downriver from the old span, will soften the sharp curve at the bottom of the hill.

Towne Road update

An agreement with Shannon & Wilson, the consultant for the Lower Dungeness Floodplain Restoration and Levee Setback Project, has been amended to provide surfacing oversight for the final months of completing Towne Road. The amendment total is $532,005.80.

Department of Community Development Director Bruce Emery and County Chief Engineer Joe Donisi provided an update on Towne Road during Monday's work session.

"Can you talk to us a little bit about where we sit with regard to permitting timelines," asked Commissioner Ozias. 

Donisi explained that the County has been in close contact with the Army Corps of Engineers and has communicated with project partner Jamestown Tribe about the stormwater monitoring plan.

"We are basically waiting for the Tribe to say: We like this plan," explained Emery. "Then that gets communicated to the Army Corps, which says: Great, all local concerns have been addressed, we don't have to delay any longer, we'll grant the modification." 

According to Emery, the Tribe's wait to approve the plan is the only delay in the project right now.

Commissioner Ozias then asked a question that had been answered in two previous work sessions.  "Since the CAVFS [Compost Amended Vegetative Filter Strips] was a new design, and the angled drainage was different from the original permit, have we had to get any permit modifications or anything different since the design that we're installing that hasn't yet been permitted is different from the design that was permitted?"

Donisi assured Ozias that the CAVFS are the "go-to" recommended stormwater treatment system.  Emery added that the Army Corps is waiting for "concurrence from the Tribe that their concerns have been addressed before issuing it."

The County is working on its second draft of the water monitoring plan requested by the Tribe.  "As far as I know, we're the only county that has developed a monitoring plan that has testing — actual testing for 6ppd-q [tire particulates] — off our roadway as a condition to our Army Corps permit modification," said Donisi. 

To appease the Tribe, the County has committed to testing the 0.6-mile stretch of road and paying the monitoring costs for years. "That is not normal," said Donisi.

Nordland, the contractor who was awarded the bid, will be ready to install the CAVFS that the Tribe has requested as early as next week if the permit modification is approved. The progress of the entire project hinges on approval from the Jamestown Tribe, which has been the main opponent to completing the road. Tribally owned Jamestown Excavating also bid on the project but was not awarded the bid. 

One wonders if the water monitoring plan would have been approved by now if the surfacing contract had been awarded to the Jamestown Tribe instead of Nordland.