Hawk Creek Road paving explained

There has been much speculation about why there is a 2-mile section in the middle of the Hawk Creek Road that remains unpaved. I will attempt to clarify.

Last year, Lincoln County paved a 5.6 mile stretch of the upper portion of the hill on the Hawk Creek Road. The funding for this project was made available from the American Rescue Plan Act dollars that the county received from the federal government to offset the effects of Covid. Those were one-time dollars and could only be used for certain things, such as roads. The county felt it would be a very beneficial use of those funds to improve that portion of the road, which will go a long way in offsetting the large maintenance expenses of a highly travelled road.

The Hawk Creek Road has been on the county’s 6-year Transportation Improvement Plan for years, but with no funding source. Since gravel roads do not qualify for state or federal funding, that leaves local dollars as the only option for improving roads such as this one. The likelihood of Lincoln County ever having the financial capacity to pay for such a project is virtually zero. But the Hawk Creek Road has been identified as one of the top priority roads to improve in the event that magical funds, such as ARPA, ever became available.

The reason the paving stopped where it did, was because the upper section of road had been built up and widened over the years and brought up to a standard that was acceptable for paving. It was literally “shovel-ready” to pave. The currently unpaved bottom section was not. That section needs to be widened and straightened as well as a significant amount of right away acquired to do the job.

Folks are also wondering why we “repaved” that section this year instead of putting that pavement on the unpaved, two-mile section. That “repaving” was what is called the construction seal. Bituminous Surface Treatment or BST roads, all require three layers of gravel and oil in order to make the road last. When the county paved it last year, two layers were applied. The nice part is, that because the county paved that section of the road and applied two layers, it then qualified for state funding for the construction seal or third layer, that was applied this year. That was paid for by state, not local dollars.

Now that that Hawk Creek Road is paved on both ends, with only a short stretch in the middle left, we believe it may now qualify for state grant funding to finish it. Lincoln County has applied for that grant through the County Road Administration Board. There are no guarantees however, as that program is competitive by nature and will be judged with all of the other county projects in the northeast region of the state. If we are successful, it could still take several years to get to the point where we could actually reconstruct it.

— Rob Coffman is a Lincoln County Commissioner. Email him at rcoffman@co.lincoln.wa.us.