POTHOLES RESERVOIR — Drivers thinking of using Road H Southeast between Potholes Reservoir and Othello should be prepared for delays as the road gets rebuilt.  

Grant County Engineer Dave Bren said work started earlier this month. The cost to rebuild 4.67 miles is about $2.8 million, with about $2.5 million from a federal grant. Road H Southeast runs south from State Route 252 near the Mardon Resort.  

“It’s a collector and it’s used a lot,” Bren said, and as a result was eligible for federal funding.  

The existing surface is being excavated, the roadbed rebuilt where necessary and the road repaved. Bren said some sections of the roadbed had settled, and when that happens the base layer in those sections be rebuilt.  

County public works crews will start work before the end of August on Road G.7 Northwest south of Quincy. The road connects Road H Northwest to White Trail Road. About 2.2 miles will be paved. 

The road will be converted from gravel to pavement. Bren said crews will grade the existing road, add more base material if necessary, then two layers of asphalt and rock. It’s known as a gravel to oil project. 

Estimated cost is about $400,000. 

“All local funding,” Bren said.  

County crews have other demands on their time and equipment, Bren said, and Road G.7 was scheduled after other projects were completed. 

“When you’re doing gravel to oil, you have to wait until the equipment is available,” he said. 

County crews are chip-sealing roads south of Warden and east of State Route 17. The work started earlier this week and is scheduled to last about two weeks. Chip-sealing is complete for the year along roads near Royal City.  

A project earlier this summer to widen and repave roads around the Gorge Amphitheater is working as planned, Bren said, although the full effect won’t be felt until work on the Vantage Bridge is completed. 

Sections of Silica Road and West Baseline Road were widened and turning lanes added. Road 1 Northwest was resurfaced. Bren said the project, along with improved security measures at the amphitheater, have made driving easier around the area on concert weekends. 

The work on the Vantage Bridge has the effect of spreading out the traffic heading to the Gorge, he said, so the full impact of the road improvements won’t be felt until that project is done.  

About one more week of work is left on a chip-sealing project along State Route 26 from Vantage to Royal City. Drivers can expect pilot cars and flagger-controlled traffic through the work zone, wrote Sebastian Moraga, Washington Department of Transportation public information officer, in an earlier press release. 

Crews will be adding the finishing touches, such as striping, to SR 26 and other chip-seal projects in Grant, Chelan, Douglas and Okanogan counties throughout the rest of the summer, Moraga said. 

A six-month project to remove some of the rocks along the cliff north of Soap Lake along SR 17 is scheduled for completion at the end of the month. Since February crews have been removing loose rocks, bolting rocks to the cliff face and installing steel nets to catch loose rocks. Traffic restrictions remain in place until the work is done.  

Traffic is subject to 20-minute delays through the work zone. Drivers are stopped for 20 minutes, traffic goes through in each direction, then the road is closed for 20 minutes. Loads more than 12 feet wide are prohibited during work hours.  

Speaking of the Vantage Bridge, work on replacing the bridge deck will continue through October. Traffic is restricted to one lane around the clock Monday through Friday. That will change after Labor Day, when traffic will be restricted to one lane on weekends as well as the work week. The bridge project is scheduled to take three years.