SOAP LAKE — State Route 17 will be closed to traffic intermittently during the first phase of a project to remove rocks and stabilize the cliff face from Soap Lake to Lake Lenore Caves. The first phase is scheduled to begin in mid-February.

Sebastian Moraga, public information officer for the Washington Department of Transportation, wrote in a WSDOT press release that the road will be completely closed on and off during weekdays in the first phase. The intermittent closures are projected to last about 35 working days. 

The project area is the section of SR 17 between Soap Lake and the Lake Lenore Caves, where the road runs between the lakes and the rock face. 

“State Route 17 between mileposts 76 and 85 will be open for only 15 minutes at the start of each hour between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday,” Moraga wrote. “The highway will be closed from 15 minutes after the hour until the start of the next hour.”

The highway will be open most of the time after the first phase is completed.

“During the rest of the project travelers should expect single-lane closures throughout the 10-mile stretch. People should expect wait times of 20 minutes or more,” he wrote.

However, one phase of the construction will require the road to be closed completely to perform specific tasks.

“The project will involve closing the full highway four times for up to 10 hours each,” Moraga wrote. “These closures have yet to be scheduled but will occur on weekdays and will allow large cranes to stand on the highway and hang netting over the slopes.

“Travelers may choose to use alternate routes, but the project will not have a designated detour,” he wrote. 

Project engineer Miguel Castillo said in an earlier interview that the goal is to stabilize the face of the embankment, which is mostly rock. Falling rocks have damaged the roadway and also pose a hazard for drivers since some of the rocks are pretty big, Castillo said. 

“Eight slopes within a 10-mile stretch will be included in this project,” Moraga wrote.

Construction crews will climb the rock face, chipping away the loose material as they go. Some sections that could be subject to erosion, but are still stable now, will be bolted to the hill, drilling through them into the still-stable rock, Castillo said. 

Once the loose rock is gone and the still-stable rocks have been bolted in, the netting will be hung over the cliff to catch anything that falls and keep it from bouncing off other rocks into the road, he said.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at [email protected].