Potholes mean bumpy spring ahead

MOSES LAKE — It’s not warm yet, but it’s sunnier and the snow is slowly going away (yay!) and the ice is gone (double yay!) and at least it’s possible to get from point A to point B without a lot of drama —

Bump.

Bump.

Well, at least it’s a drama-free trip if the driver can avoid the potholes.

It’s been a long hard winter and it’s been as hard on roads as anywhere else. In the rueful words of Ephrata city manager Wes Crago, “This spring will be a bouncy one.”

“We’re expecting to see a bit more damage from this winter than the last few,” said Jeff Gincher, director of Grant County Public Works. “Every year we have some potholes,” said Moses Lake city engineer Shawn O’Brien, but winter 2016-17 was exceptional. "More potholes than we've seen in a long time," said Othello city manager Wade Ferris.

"It's been an extremely bad year, just because of all the freeze-thaw cycles we've had," said Dave Reynolds, director of public works for the city of Quincy. "It's just been an ongoing battle, all winter long."

Cold weather and asphalt don’t play well together. The cold freezes the surface and works its way underground, and when it stays cold, the frost works pretty far underground, said Shawn O’Brien, Moses Lake city engineer. Building a road requires disturbing the original soil, putting new dirt in some places, and all that disturbed soil reacts differently to that frost.

In addition, both O’Brien and Crago said road maintenance budgets are not what they once were. Cracks that aren’t sealed in the summer will let rain and melting snow seep through when winter returns.

So – that’s how they get there; how are they fixed?

The best fix is to wait until it warms up, the ground dries out and facilities that make asphalt start producing, O’Brien said. Optimal conditions are “hot mix (asphalt), warm conditions and a dry pothole,” he said. But warm sunny weather and new asphalt won’t be around until April or so. Some couldn't wait, Ferris said. "Some of them were so bad we patched them as well as we could."

For those that can't wait there’s a different product called cold mix. “Cold mix is a temporary fix,” O'Brien said. But it can be used in colder weather. Quincy city officials opted to fill the really bad spots with gravel for a temporary fix, and wait until asphalt is available for a permanent fix, Reynolds said.

It does require dry weather to work, and dry weather has been hard to come by in February. Moses Lake city employees were out Thursday morning applying cold mix to a line of big and little potholes on Stratford Road. Technically cold mix isn’t cold. Workers used a torch to heat up the ground and the existing material before applying the new stuff and tamping it down.

Rain Monday and Tuesday meant pothole repair was put on hold, and Moses Lake city crews turned to another consequence of winter – bumpy gravel roads. Some of those were in bad shape, but dirt roads also require warmer weather. A newly-graded frozen road deteriorates in a few hours, O’Brien said.

There are things drivers can do to minimize the damage, both to their cars and to the road. “If there’s a road restriction, please observe it,” Crago said. Ephrata city officials are asking drivers to contact City Hall when they encounter a pothole. Moses Lake city crews pretty much know where the trouble spots are, O’Brien said, but Moses Lake drivers too should call city maintenance officials at 509-764-3951 if they spot road damage. “No harm in calling.”