Shifting land closes stretch of Grade Road in Lake Stevens
Published 8:05 pm Friday, October 16, 2015
LAKE STEVENS — A short stretch of Grade Road is closed and could remain so for months due to shifting earth underneath.
City officials closed the road between 30th and 32nd Avenue NE Wednesday morning. The decision came after discovering some movements alongside and underneath the east side of the street.
“This does not appear to be a slide, though possible, but a settlement,” Public Works Director Mick Monken said. “This means that the ground is moving slow.”
The city has been working with a geotechnical firm to monitor Grade Road since 2014 and until this week equipment had not detected any shifts in the embankment that supports the pavement. However, Catherine Creek runs to the east of the road and has been cutting closer toward that embankment. Monken suspects erosion is behind the new problem.
It’s a priority to repair and reopen Grade Road, a key link to downtown Lake Stevens, but the project could take months, Monken said. Most of the embankment that needs stabilization is on private property and falls within an area that is protected by the state because of the creek and wetlands.
A few years ago, there was a slide along 36th Street NE near Catherine Creek. In that case, it took roughly a year and half to get the necessary permissions to start repairing the road, Monken said.
