Construction likely to complicate commutes in ML this summer
CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 years, 8 months AGO
Crews have begun construction on the roundabout at Grape Drive and S.R. 17. Work rebuilding much of W. Valley Road will begin the first week of June, making for a "messy" commute in parts of Moses Lake this summer, according to Moses Lake City Engineer Richard Law.
R. HANS MILLER/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
MOSES LAKE — Upcoming and current roadwork is going to make for interesting driving in part of Moses Lake this summer.
At a regular meeting Tuesday, the Moses Lake City Council unanimously approved awarding a $2.9 million contract to Wenatchee-based Selland Construction to tear up and redo the surface of W. Valley Road from N. Stratford Road to N. Paxson Drive.
“They are excited to get started and give us a good product,” said City Engineer Richard Law.
Law said the construction is set to begin right after Memorial Day on May 30, and is expected to take around 20 weeks. That project will overlap with the timeline when Washington State Department of Transportation road crews are busy turning the interchange of S.R. 17 and Grape Drive into a two-lane roundabout, which began on Monday.
“Have you seen the traffic there since Monday?” Council Member Judy Madewell asked Law as she brought up the start of work on the roundabout.
“Yes, it’s going to be messy for a little while,” Law replied. “We understand it’s a busy season.”
Law said construction work would not take place during this year’s Grant County Fair, which is scheduled for Aug. 16-20.
The city has no plans to close W. Valley Road, Law said. Rather, construction work will take place in four phases, with each phase closing either eastbound or westbound traffic on half the road as crews rebuild and resurface the road. Traffic will be routed around on the half of the road that is not being redone, Law explained.
Law also said as part of the work the city would be redoing the recreation path along the south side of W. Valley Road and will install a proper sidewalk along portions of the street that currently do not have them.
Council Member Deanna Martinez said she hoped that the neighborhood immediately to the south of W. Valley Road would get an extra police presence to help direct and control traffic trying to bypass the construction work.
“That neighborhood gets a lot of flowing traffic,” she said. “We need an increased police presence to make sure they are not driving through too fast.”
Moses Lake Police Chief Kevin Fuhr said that traffic on Loop Drive — which runs parallel to W. Valley Road — is the main problem the MLPD will need to focus on once the W. Valley Road work begins.
“Loop Drive is a nightmare during construction. Basically, it’s a one-lane road,” he said.
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.
ARTICLES BY CHARLES H. FEATHERSTONE
Potato prices up, sales down for first quarter 2023
DENVER — The value of grocery store potato sales rose 16% during the first three months of 2023 as the total volume of sales fell by 4.4%, according to a press release from PotatoesUSA, the national marketing board representing U.S. potato growers. The dollar value of all categories of U.S. potato products for the first quarter of 2023 was $4.2 billion, up from $3.6 billion for the first three months of 2022. However, the total volume of potato sales fell to 1.77 billion pounds in the first quarter of 2023 compared with 1.85 billion pounds during the same period of 2022, the press release noted. However, total grocery store potato sales for the first quarter of 2023 are still above the 1.74 billion pounds sold during the first three months of 2019 – a year before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the press release said.
WSU Lind Dryland Research Station welcomes new director
LIND — Washington State University soil scientist and wheat breeder Mike Pumphrey was a bit dejected as he stood in front of some thin test squares of stunted, somewhat scraggly spring wheat at the university’s Lind Dryland Research Station. “As you can see, the spring wheat is having a pretty tough go of it this year,” he said. “It’s a little discouraging to stand in front of plots that are going to yield maybe about seven bushels per acre. Or something like that.” Barely two inches of rain have fallen at the station since the beginning of March, according to station records. Pumphrey, speaking to a crowd of wheat farmers, researchers, seed company representatives and students during the Lind Dryland Research Station’s annual field day on Thursday, June 15, said years like 2023 are a reminder that dryland farming is a gamble.
Wilson Creek hosts bluegrass gathering
WILSON CREEK — Bluegrass in the Park is set to start today at Wilson Creek City Park. The inaugural event is set to bring music and visitors to one of Grant County’s smallest towns. “I've been listening to bluegrass my whole life,” said the event’s organizer Shirley Billings, whose family band plays on their porch every year for the crowd at the Little Big Show. “My whole family plays bluegrass. And I just wanted to kind of get something for the community going. So I just invited all the people that I know and they’ll come and camp and jam.” ...