Road Maintenance Update for the week of March 11

information released

Watch for road crews in all five districts to be doing spring cleanup work. That may mean brooming, brushing, grading primitive roads, cleaning culverts and repairing potholes. In some of our higher elevations, crews may still be on snow and ice control.

This week in Cashmere, watch for the road crew to be cleaning ditches on Olalla Canyon Road. Watch for one-lane, flagger-controlled traffic, with the crew working from upper Olalla Canyon Road down. In the Entiat River Road area, watch for crews brooming on bridges. Lower your speeds in the work zone and obey flaggers. Crews also will be brushing and grading in the districts. This work may require one-lane, flagger-controlled traffic and create minor traffic delays.

For a detailed list of what crews are doing in each of the road districts this week, go to the Road Maintenance graph on our website. Or follow along with the crew on the Public Works Facebook page.

LET’S TALK POTHOLES: The transition from winter to spring, a time that brings precipitation and lingering cold temperatures, oftentimes is when potholes become most noticeable on our local roads. When water gets under the pavement through cracks or from the side of the road, that water can cause the material under the pavement to erode, or even to sink down and break. During the spring, cold temperatures then cause the water below the pavement to freeze and thaw, freeze and thaw — cracking the pavement. Now you have a pothole. This blog post on potholes is an oldie but a goodie.

If you spot a pothole on a county road, send a service request to Chelan County Public Works.