Road guru: Grant County engineer keeps the county rolling

EPHRATA — Keith Elefson said the county engineer is responsible for roads, first and foremost.

“We’re responsible for pretty much all features within the road right of way – bridges, signs, obviously the road itself, guardrails – those types of things all fall under us,” he said.

Elefson is the Grant County engineer. Before he took the job, in May 2020, the public works director was also the county engineer. The job was split into two jobs when Elefson and current public works director Sam Castro were hired.

“We’re responsible for maintenance, whether it’s a gravel road, or paved. Anything that’s a county road, we have the responsibility for,” he said.

The engineering staff also takes care of any existing rights-of-way that haven’t been improved.

“Most of our roads are reconstructions. We typically don’t build many new roads. That’s usually done through development,” he said.

Maintaining a road starts with an analysis of its current condition.

“First we have to figure out what the issue is,” he said. “You have to identify the project, scope it out, come up with a preliminary estimate so that you know about what it’s going to cost. Those are usually high-level estimates.”

The engineering department also looks for funding, if the project calls for that, Elefson said. Project design is the engineering department’s responsibility, with the exception of bridges.

Grant County is large and has a lot of roads.

“I believe we’re the second-most road miles for a county in the state,” Elefson said.

Gravel roads need more frequent maintenance, but paved roads need more work when maintenance is required, he said, “and they tend to be much more expensive.”

But the crews are equal to the challenge, Elefson said.

“We’ve got really good crews that are really efficient in what they do. With the magnitude that we’re dealing with, they really do an amazing job. I think we’ve got some of the best roads in the state, the way they maintain them, even though we don’t get the number of dollars per mile as a lot of places,” he said.

Prioritizing is the biggest challenge, he said. He gave snow removal as an example.

“We’re always trying to make sure we can move as much traffic as we can, so we start on those major roads and then work our way out to the residential and gravel roads.

“The same applies with our road maintenance plan. We’ve got certain roads that just carry a lot of traffic, and we need to maintain them more frequently than maybe some others,” he said.

Roads closest to towns get the most attention, he said. Dodson Road is an example of a road that’s not close to town but carries a lot of traffic, so it gets regular maintenance.

It’s a challenge to meet all the expectations of constituents, with so many miles of roads to maintain. Some projects are desirable but not possible with the resources available.

Previously, Elefson worked in Skagit County and liked his job. He had a short list of counties where he would apply if the county engineer’s job came open. Grant County was one of them.

Nevertheless, he was a little hesitant about taking the job when it was offered, he said. It was May 2020, early in the pandemic, and Grant County’s public works department was undergoing some transitions.

“When I came here, I didn’t even know my boss (public works director Sam Castro). He wasn’t involved in the interviews, he was hired the same day I was. I never had the chance to meet the staff. I didn’t know anybody in the area,” he said.

It was a gamble.

“Except that I ended up landing in the perfect spot,” he said. “I ended up here, and it couldn’t be a better place.”

Elefson said he trained as an environmental engineer, following a career in the U.S. Navy. But he started working on roads instead.

“I’ve never worked a day as an environmental engineer,” he said.