Contractor goes full bore on Almota road project

Crews for Clarkston contractor M.A. DeAtley have started work under their contract for rebuilding over three miles of Almota Road. They hope to finish the project this year.

Mark Storey, Whitman County public works director, said Tuesday the crew had already begun ripping up the shoulders of the road and is putting more equipment on the ground to get the project done early.

Once finished with the shoulders, they will begin tearing up the road surface. Storey said that should begin early next week.

“They’re hitting this with a lot of metal,” said Storey. “They’re a big company and can devote a lot of resources to this.”

He said the company had four big scrapers on site late last week.

The county’s initial schedule was to have prep work done this year and have new pavement put down in the spring.

The project is the second phase of rebuilding the Almota Road. It will extend from the Duncan Springs Road intersection to the Sommers Road intersection at Union Flat. In 2007, Almota Road was rebuilt from Colfax to Duncan Springs Road.

DeAtley was awarded a $2,308,438.75 contract on the job. Storey had estimated the project cost at nearly $3.2 million.

“As long as everything meets the engineered specifics, they should make a greater profit if they do the job quicker,” said Storey. “That’s the sort of incentive you like.”

Construction on the road comes at a time when grain haulers use the Almota Road the most. Traffic increases sharply during harvest when grain is hauled to the terminals at the Port of Almota.

Storey said grain haulers should expect delays through the construction zone.

“It’s just one of those things. Harvest time is also construction time,” said Storey. “We can’t build roads any other time of the year.”

He said the county has alerted farmers who operate in fields along the construction zone.

Grain haulers can avoid the construction road by taking Highway 26 to the Sommers Road intersection at Twin Bridges and turn south on Sommers Road. That links with Almota Road at the south end of the work zone.

That detour adds about five miles to the route from Colfax.