Funding a challenge for some Adams Co. projects

RITZVILLE — The second phase of a project to upgrade Schoonover Road that Adams County officials thought had received federal funding may not be getting it after all. A rules revision that allowed four bridges over the East Low Canal to qualify for complete federal funding also may have been eliminated. 

Adams County Engineer Scott Yaeger said federal funding is still allocated for two bridges across the canal and the first phase of the Schoonover Road project, between Rosenoff Road and Rehn Road. 

Commissioner Dan Blankenship said county officials worked on securing funding for about 18 months and thought they had it. 

“Back to the drawing board and start over,” Blankenship said. “It’s a little disappointing.” 

Yaeger said funding for the second phase of Schoonover Road, about $2 million, was on a list of projects requested by former Representative Cathy McMorris-Rodgers.  

“This extension project made it on the appropriations project list but all projects on that list were not funded,” Yaeger wrote in response to an email from the Columbia Basin Herald.  

The first phase of the Schoonover Road project is scheduled to start in late June and be completed by October. The total cost is about $3.13 million.  

Blankenship said the request was included in appropriations packages that were awaiting a final vote by Congress, but Congressional leaders didn’t vote on the bill. They opted to pass a continuing resolution instead. 

“Any new requests that were in those appropriations bills disappeared like they never happened,” Blankenship said.  

That also meant the end of a request from Washington Senator Patty Murray to change the requirements for a program that would’ve paid for work on the four bridges, he said. 

Extending the bridges is the first step to widening the canal. That would allow the conversion of farms in the Odessa area to surface water for irrigation; currently, those farms use groundwater. The goal is to reduce water use from the aquifer that supplies water to the Columbia Basin, according to earlier interviews with officials from the Columbia Basin Development League.  

Murray had requested the change so that the four remaining bridges would qualify for a different funding source. That program would not have required any matching money from Adams County. 

“That all disappeared as well,” Blankenship said.  

All the bridges that require widening are northeast of Othello, and funding was secured for two of them. Sackman Road will be the first one upgraded. Cost is about $4.8 million, and work will start after the irrigation season ends in October.  

Design is complete for the new bridge, which will span the canal without piers in the water. It will be supported by abutments anchored to shore instead. The abutments and the bridge deck will be precast and assembled onsite. The bridge deck is made of precast panels that will be installed separately and joined with concrete and a tie system.