MOSES LAKE — Sections of two gravel roads - Virginia and Luta streets - in Moses Lake will be paved with storm drains, curbs, gutters and sidewalks added next month. A contract for about $798,800 for the work was awarded July 9 to Hurst Construction, Wenatchee.  

The project also includes site preparation for additional streetlights and other infrastructure improvements.   

City Engineer Richard Law said the work will pave the equivalent of about one block on each street. Paving or rebuilding streets is expensive, he said, citing the 2022 project to rebuild a one-mile section of Valley Road. The total cost was about $2.8 million.  

A maintenance program extends the life of already-paved streets, so Moses Lake has one; depending on the street, it’ll be scheduled for crack-sealing or seal coating.  

Crack sealing is basically what it sounds like — an adhesive sealant is applied to cracks in the pavement surface, according to the Asphalt Pro website. It’s only suitable for certain cracks, however.  

Estimated project cost of seal-coating streets throughout town — Law said street sections were identified throughout Moses Lake — is $1 to $1.2 million.  

Seal-coating is a variant of the chip-seal process. The asphalt mix is applied, then the rock chips, then a second layer of asphalt mix, then it’s all compressed. (Chip-sealing typically lacks the second layer of asphalt mix.) 

“(Seal coating) makes it a little bit smoother to drive on,” Law said.  

Moses Lake officials also use it for maintenance because drivers don’t use city streets the way they use highways, Law said.  

Typically, drivers travel in straight lines on the highway, without a lot of the sharp curves that are part of any intersection. In highway conditions the chip-seal rocks are more likely to stay in place, Law said. 

But there are lots of sharp turns — at intersections, in and out of driveways — on urban roads, Law said. There’s more opportunity for rock applied to surface to break loose.  

“Intersections are especially challenging,” he said.  

Seal-coating all of Moses Lake is a long process, because there are a lot of streets.  

“We have over 200 miles of roads in the city of Moses Lake,” Law said. “To get to all of the streets takes many, many years.” 

City officials have an ongoing street evaluation program, with a process that rates street condition. How much is replaced in any given year depends on the budget. 

In Washington, seal coat material costs about $18 to $45 per square yard, depending on a number of factors like the type of rocks used, according to the HomeGuide website. The road maintenance program for 2024 anticipated applying seal coat to about 230,000 square yards of road surface.  

Seal coating is almost complete for 2024; the last step will be adding striping and fog lines where needed. A week or so of curing is required after the pavement is applied to ensure the paint sticks to the surface, Law said.  

Clarification: The names of the streets have been added to the first paragraph for clarity.

    A section of East Broadway Avenue awaits striping after being seal coated.