STANWOOD — Work to help the fish in Secret Creek is set to shut down part of the main highway from I-5 to Stanwood and Camano Island.
Contractors plan to replace a fish culvert under the highway. It’s one of hundreds of such projects that need to be done around the state over the next 14 years to comply with a 2013 federal court order.
Highway 532 is set to close at 8 p.m. Friday and reopen by 5 a.m. next Friday, Aug. 19. The closure is between 12th Avenue NW and 28th Avenue NW, immediately west of the interstate at exit 212.
Detours are planned and there will be signs for drivers. The detours are different for east- and west-bound vehicles and should add between two and six minutes to a trip, depending on the time of day, according to the state Department of Transportation. Drivers can expect to see police officers and flaggers along the detours.
A different route is being used for trucks because intersections on the car detours are not large enough for semis. Truck drivers may need to add up to 30 minutes to their drive time.
Workers are replacing the Secret Creek culvert with a larger one. The plan is to dig a trench, 40 feet down and all the way across the highway, and install a culvert that is more than four times as wide as the current one.
A culvert is a channel or tube that directs a stream or creek under the road. The existing four-foot wide culvert under Highway 532 isn’t big enough and salmon have a hard time getting through, according to project engineer Dave Lindberg.The new culvert is designed to be 18 feet wide and 10 feet tall.
It’s one of more than 800 culverts that need to be replaced under the court order.
In 2007, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the state cannot build or maintain culverts that interfere with fish passage. There were 21 Indian tribes from Northwest Washington involved in the case against the state. They asserted that their treaty-based fishing rights have been impeded by inadequate culverts underneath state roads.
The court in March 2013 issued an injunction that requires the state to repair or replace the culverts by 2030. WSDOT estimates that it needs to redo between 30 and 40 culverts each year. The work started in 2015 and is expected to cost $2.4 billion total, according to a February report from WSDOT. About $87.5 million was set aside by the state in 2015-17.
The Secret Creek culvert is a $3.27 million project being handled by contractor Faber Construction. Along with widening the culvert, it includes work to rebuild stream bed habitat for other wildlife.
About 17,000 vehicles use that part of Highway 532 each day, according to WSDOT.
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
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