ACME, Wash. — Officials with Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) warn to expect delays in both directions on State Route 9 (SR9) near Maleng Road while flaggers direct traffic through a work area.
Flaggers are scheduled to alternate traffic through a work area near Maleng Road from Monday, April 19th, through Friday, April 23rd, between the hours of 7am and 6pm.
The work is related to an upcoming WSDOT project to improve the passage of migratory fish by replacing the culvert underneath SR 9 at milepost 70.60, where a tributary runs to Landingstrip Creek. The existing culvert has a diameter of 30 inches and is said not to be passable by fish based on its location.
The 30-inch pipe 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 SR9 but a portion of the upstream tributary will be slightly realigned to straighten out the channel according to WSDOT.
Work scheduled to begin this summer will require a 68-mile detour around the work area via I-5 due to a continuous 96-hour, full closure of SR9 during a workweek once the project is underway according to WSDOT. This will allow crews to excavate the existing roadway, remove the existing culvert, install the new culvert and rebuild the roadway.