Crews ready for road work

EPHRATA — With warmer weather slowly arriving, the Grant County Department of Public Works is preparing for its regular round of summer maintenance on the county’s roads, including chip sealing about 165 miles of country roads.

“Everything is a little bit behind,” said Mike DeTrolio, road supervisor for county’s second road district, which covers the southeast portion of the county, including Moses Lake.

The three road district supervisors, along with several other senior public works managers, who met with County Commissioner Richard Stevens and Commission chair Cindy Carter at the public works department offices near the Port of Ephrata.

Road crews are late getting out to start spring and summer work because winter lingered longer than usual and did a fair amount of damage to the county’s roads.

Public Works Director Jeff Tincher said it was unclear whether or not the county would receive any state aid to help with winter road repairs.

“It’s yes and no for emergency state aid,” he said.

Typical summer work for county road crews includes replacing gravel and oiling gravel roads, mowing, chip sealing paved roads, and repairing or replacing winter damage to things like guard rails, putting up new signs, and striping the roads.

According to Traffic Manager Rod Follett, who also runs the county’s sign shop, crews have about 600 miles worth of roads to stripe.

Grant County has about 2,500 miles of county-maintained roads.

Bridge Supervisor Andy Booth said his crews have been out repairing winter damage and have used a fairly inexpensive underwater video camera — and a boat salvaged from a culvert — to perform underwater inspections of three bridges in the county, eliminating the need for inspections by state divers.

“We keep finding stuff to use it for,” he told commissioners.

Finally, landfill manager Janice Goeden said with the arrival of spring, things have been very busy at the landfill. She also told commissioners that her department will be opening bids soon for someone to crush the 100-150 tons of metal that have collected in the county’s landfill.

“Saturdays are busy,” Goeden said. “There’s a lot of cleanup. This last winter was so restrictive that a lot of waste has been coming in.”

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.