Clark County Public Works spokesman Jeff Mize, left, and bridge and culvert manager Ken Price look over a collapsed section of Northwest Pacific Highway in La Center. The road has been closed since Feb. 12 and is expected to remain closed for a few months while the county works to repair it. Amanda Cowan/The Columbian Photo Gallery
LA CENTER — The oldest record of Northwest Pacific Highway dates back to 1875, but a stretch of the road will be reborn in the coming months.
Snow and heavy rain caused a washout beneath the road last month. Clark County Public Works officials saw part of the road sagging and on Feb. 12 closed a section of Pacific Highway near Northwest Wellman Avenue just outside the northwest tip of La Center.
Two days later, the road started to cave in. County road crews removed other parts of the road hanging over the washout area to prevent more chunks from falling in.
“We could do some temporary repair and get this reopened,” said Jeff Mize, spokesman with Clark County Public Works. “The idea is to do it right the first time. We’re looking at months, not weeks.”
The opening goes about 17 feet down to the flowing water, and the size of the hole is roughly 24 feet by 20 feet, according to Ken Price, bridge and culvert manager for Clark County Public Works.
“There’s potential that both sides of (the hole) could get bigger,” Price said. “The water backed up for some reason. The culvert failed because of something. We just don’t know what.”
What is known is the area beneath the road will get a larger culvert. The previous one was 30 inches. The county has been working with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which determined the site will need a 12-foot culvert.
Chuck Stambaugh-Bowey, assistant regional habitat program manager for Fish and Wildlife, said the department measures surrounding land to determine what size culvert is needed.
“This stream is a tributary of Jenny Creek, and that has a confluence of the East Fork of the Lewis River,” Stambaugh-Bowey said. “There is a waterfall there. There are resident fish in Jenny Creek.”
He added that the stream passing underneath Pacific Highway doesn’t have any anadromous life, or fish that go out to the ocean and come back to spawn, such as salmon or steelhead.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re ocean-going fish or resident fish,” Stambaugh-Bowey said. “We look to protect fish life and provide passage.”
Mize said officials are still working on a plan for what needs to be done to best rebuild the road. Until then, that portion of the road will remain closed, and Mize urged people to avoid the area. For those driving south into the area, Northwest Eddy Rock Road is the last place to turn before coming to the closed section. For northbound traffic, Northwest Wellman Road is the final turning point.
Price said Public Works put concrete barriers up on both sides of the road so people can’t move them to try and sneak by. There is a risk that more parts of the road could still collapse.
Surrounding agencies
So far, the closure has been a headache for residents who live nearby and have to take longer routes out and back home. Other than that, the various surrounding agencies haven’t seen much of an impact.
Pacific Highway is regularly used to bypass Interstate 5 for residents heading north toward Woodland. Clark County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Alex Schoening said the closure hasn’t caused a significant traffic impact yet. Like Mize, Schoening also urged people to avoid the area. Mize said the rubbernecking has gone down more recently.
“In infancy stages, there were a lot of onlookers,” Schoening said. “They wanted to see the carnage.”
La Center Police Chief Marc Denney said most locals know how to maneuver around other roads to avoid the closed area, so his department hasn’t heard much in the way of complaints.
When the road was first closed, Clark County Fire and Rescue Chief John Nohr said it could add to response times for certain areas nearby.
“We have not had any excessive delays in that area at this time,” Nohr wrote in an email. “The area is fairly unpopulated along that stretch of road, so call volume is low.”
Shannon Barnett, director of the KWRL Transportation Cooperative, said his agency regularly deals with landslides, especially during the wetter months. KWRL covers La Center, Kalama, Woodland and Ridgefield. He said slides are a common occurrence in all four areas, although the Pacific Highway one is a bit more long-lasting than normal.
“We were probably dealing with five or six different slides at the time. It was hectic at that moment,” he said. “All those other slides subsided.”
The closure impacts one route used by roughly 40 students in the La Center School District, Barnett said, and that has added about 15 minutes onto the ride for students on the north end of the district.
“We’re used to it. It’s part of rural life,” he said. “As long as I’ve been here, I don’t think we’ve had a winter go by without a significant delay somewhere. We like to joke that if it’s not snow or flooding, we look for locusts next.”
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