Culvert work to close Highway 532 in Stanwood
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 20, 2016
STANWOOD — Help is coming for salmon in Secret Creek in the form of a larger culvert beneath Highway 532 east of Stanwood.
Work by Washington State Department of Transportation contractors to replace the 4-foot diameter culvert with a much larger box culvert — measuring 18 feet wide and 10 feet high — is set to begin Monday.
The $3.27 million project in August will require a closure of the highway in both directions, just west of I-5 between 12th Avenue NW/E Sunday Lake Road and 28th Avenue NW. On other days, flaggers are likely to direct traffic through a single lane during nighttime hours.
The closure is tentatively set for Aug. 12-19. A detour is expected to add two to six minutes of travel time. Truck drivers will follow a separate, longer detour through Conway.
A staging area for the work also will close 268th Street NW, east of E Sunday Lake Road.
Secret Creek is a Pilchuck Creek tributary. Three miles of fish habitat will open up after the work, which also will rebuild the stream bed in an effort to restore historical fish migration patterns and tribal fishing rights. The site is one of more than 1,000 culverts subject to a 2013 U.S. District Court ruling about fish passages.
