A crew with Seton Construction moves a concrete slab off a flatbed semi-trailer truck for use on a temporary bridge along Highway 104 west of Shine on Thursday.

Leader photo by Brian Kelly

Slabs for the approaches to the temporary bridge are put into place Thursday.

Leader photo by Brian Kelly

• 
• 

Drivers on Highway 104 west of the Hood Canal Bridge will get off the beaten path in a few weeks as construction nears completion on a temporary bridge and bypass route near Shine Creek.

Construction of a new culvert on the busy highway at Shine Creek started at the end of May, and workers at the site said last week efforts to install a detour and new bridge through the work zone is expected to be finished in three weeks.

The installation of the new culvert, along with a similar culvert on Highway 19 at Swansonville Creek, is expected to cost $8 million.

Work on the Shine Creek culvert started first, while clearing and grubbing for the Swansonville Creek followed in recent weeks.

The work along Highway 104 is impossible to miss. Construction work has limited travel along the highway to one lane at times, and the project prompted a series of nighttime closures last week as two large cranes moved concrete girders in place for the temporary bypass bridge.

Adrian Calvillo, assistant inspector for the culvert project, said Seton Construction, the contractor for the culvert installations, has 120 days to complete the work. 

An 18-inch corrugated culvert that diverts Shine Creek under the highway will be replaced with a 18-foot-wide, three-sided box culvert.

“That large culvert is what we’re placing quite literally right over here,” Calvillo said, pointing to the section of roadway that will be removed just east of the New Shine Quarry. “It’s a hefty size.”

The removal of the smaller culvert is necessary because it’s a barrier to fish, explained Mark Krulish, a spokesman for the Olympic Region of the Washington State Department of Transportation.

The culvert replacement project, like scores of similar installations across the state, is necessary due to a permanent injunction ordered by the U.S. District Court in 2013.

The injunction followed a lawsuit against the state of Washington that was filed by 21 northwest Washington tribes, who said the state had failed to live up to its treaty obligations to preserve fish runs. The federal court ordered Washington to significantly increase its work on removing state-owned culverts that block habitat for salmon and steelhead by 2030.  

The Shine/Swansonville culverts are expected to open up miles of creek habitat when complete.

“A lot of what goes into getting which project, which creeks we’re doing, when, has to do with habitat gain,” Krulish said. “We’re prioritizing the largest habitat gain we can get. So Shine and Swansonville both fall under that category.”

The new culvert on Highway 104 at Shine Creek will open up 2.7 miles of habitat; the Swansonville culvert will open 2.3 miles to fish passage.

Beyond placing the new culvert and bypass bridge, the Shine project also includes the installation of mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls; the first are visible to passersby on Highway 104 on the north side of the highway.

Work will also be done to compact soils added to the stream bed, to reduce unwanted infiltration of the creek water into the soil, as well as land restoration work and plantings.

Transportation officials said once the project is complete, fish will be able to pass through both creeks more easily and the water will be slower and simulate a natural creek environment.

The schedule for the project has been in flux a bit in recent weeks, Calvillo said, and some of the work has been shifted to new times. Moving the existing guardrail along the stretch of Highway 104 and placing a temporary barrier had been planned to happen at night, but that will now be done during daylight hours.

Smaller concrete slabs on the temporary bypass bridge were earlier expected to happen last Friday, but that work was moved up to Thursday.

While some materials for the project have been easily available — fill for the project is coming from the Thorndyke Pit Road Quarry, for example — other pieces are coming from afar. Calvillo said the new guardrails that will be used are still in storage near Spokane.

Even so, the bypass is still expected to be in use within three weeks. The two-lane bypass roadway around the work zone is expected to be open July 21.

Speed limits near and through the work zone will be dropped to 35 mph and 45 mph.

The bypass route will be in use for three months as the culvert work continues.

For the Swansonville Creek culvert, a 10-day closure of Highway 19 is planned.

That shutdown has not yet been scheduled, but is expected to happen after Labor Day weekend.

Krulish noted that after the culverts are placed, the state will continue to monitor the project to make sure they are functioning as planned and are not blocking fish passage.

The Department of Fish & Wildlife also conducts surveys upstream after culvert projects are finished to look for adult salmon and steelhead.

Previous projects have removed culverts that have blocked fish from hundreds of miles of habitat.

According to the Department of Transportation, the agency has fixed more than a hundred culvert barriers through June of last year, and the work has improved access to 474 miles of blocked steelhead and salmon habitat.

With its high number of state-owned fish barriers, the region will continue to see additional projects in the future, Krulish said.

“We have a lot of fish passage work on the Olympic Peninsula over the next few years,” he said.