ACME, Wash. – Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) contractor crews will be working to construct a new fish passage at Landingstrip Creek under Valley Highway (SR9) south of Acme next week. The work will require closing Valley Highway to all traffic, including emergency vehicles, between Maleng Road and Rothenbuhler Road for 96-hours beginning at 7am on Monday, July 26th, until 7am on Friday, July 30th.
A 68-mile detour will be in place to divert traffic around the work zone via Mount Baker Highway, I-5 and State Route 20. As a result, drivers who would normally travel Valley Highway/SR9 are advised to plan ahead and expect up to 90 minutes of additional travel time.
During the closure, crews will be excavating the roadway, removing the existing culvert, installing a new culvert and rebuilding the highway.
Work on the project has already begun and this week the road has been reduced to a single lane through the work area as a result.
Once Valley Highway is reopened, drivers will likely continue to encounter delays for several days due to lane closures while the work wraps up.
The new culvert will be a 14-foot by 10-foot split box culvert and will open 1.34 miles of upstream fish habitat. There will be no change to the alignment of the road but a portion of the upstream tributary will be slightly realigned to straighten out the channel according to WSDOT.