SULTAN — The route most often used to access Spada Lake could remain closed until summer.
Sultan Basin Road was damaged in two places by flooding on Olney Creek earlier this month. In one spot, roughly 200 feet of asphalt are gone. In another spot, the rising water took out trees and guardrails, with the creek bank now threatening the road, Snohomish County public works director Steve Thomsen said.
The storm that started Jan. 4 dropped up to 8 inches of rain on the areas above Sultan, according to the National Weather Service.
It doesn’t appear that the local flood damage will meet requirements for state and federal disaster declarations, said John Pennington, the county’s director of emergency management.
No homes are blocked by the closure. Fixing the road is expected to cost more than $300,000.
“We the locals bear the brunt of all these repairs that Mother Nature dishes out to us,” Thomsen said.
Sultan Basin Road stretches 13.4 miles from U.S. 2 in Sultan to Spada Lake, the Culmback Dam reservoir that provides drinking water to much of the county. An estimated 25,000 cars travel the road each year, Thomsen said.
The road was built in 1900. In those days, wagons were used to haul down ore from the mining areas along the Sultan River, said Neil Neroutsos, a spokesman for the Snohomish County PUD.
The dam is a key piece of the Henry M. Jackson Hydroelectric Project, which generates power for the PUD. Spada Lake also is a popular spot for hiking, fishing and bicycling. All recreation at the site is closed until at least June, Neroutsos said.
The city of Everett manages the water supply. The city has a park ranger who patrols the area, city public works spokeswoman Marla Carter said.
“Typically this time of year we would have so much snow up there that they wouldn’t be plowing the road and people wouldn’t be getting up there anyway, so it’s pretty much normal operations for us at this point,” she said. Officials say they have alternate routes if needed. Still, the road is considered critical infrastructure, Pennington said.
After the storm, county crews spent several days dropping rock and stabilizing the bank, “to keep the river from chewing away at it,” Thomsen said. A temporary road may be created until warmer months more hospitable to paving.
The 200-foot washout happened 7.4 miles up the road, at Olney Creek, Thomsen said. The eroded bank area is about four miles farther, another Olney Creek crossing.
Sultan Basin Road and Whitehorse Trail along Deer Creek near Oso sustained the worst of the flooding damage on county property from the storm, though rising rivers usually swallow about a dozen county roads before they recede, Thomsen said.
The lack of more significant damage from the storm is the result of years of flood mitigation work by the county, Pennington said.
Rikki King: 425-339-3449; rking@heraldnet.com.
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