U.S. 2 road job possible in 2006

The Daily Inter Lake

Efforts to improve the troublesome Swamp Creek section of U.S. 2 could move forward next spring, after 20 years of design and environmental work.

The Montana Department of Transportation will hold an informational meeting in Libby on Thursday to update the public about the status of the project.

The Swamp Creek section runs from Libby Creek south to the Fisher River. It's about 12 miles long. Plans call for rebuilding two 12-foot lanes, with 8-foot shoulders and one passing lane on a hill.

There's been talk of improving this section of highway since at least 1986.

A final design was ready in 1996, but the project was bumped due to a lack of money.

Before it got back in the funding cycle, bull trout were listed as a threatened species. That prompted a complete redesign because Swamp Creek had to be taken out of a ditch beside the road and returned to a natural channel.

A second redesign was required in 2001 after engineers discovered what one official described as "a bottomless pit of muck" under part of the highway.

"There are some sections where the soil is extremely unstable," Department of Transportation spokeswoman Charity Watt Levis said on Tuesday. "We built some test berms to see what can be done to stabilize these areas. There were definitely lessons learned from that, but it didn't provide the 'silver bullet' answer about how to go about rebuilding those sections of road."

Given these technical difficulties, she said, the project recently was split into three sections.

The northernmost section should go out to bid in March, Watt Levis said, with construction slated to begin next spring.

Splitting the project should make it easier from a funding standpoint.

The total project cost is currently estimated to be about $20 million. Rather than delay work until all of the money is available, the department wants to proceed with the northern section while it looks for technical solutions to the soil issue on the other two sections.

Thursday's meeting will discuss the funding challenges and the overall project design, including some recent alignment shifts and proposed retaining walls, and the channel design for Swamp Creek.

The meeting takes place in the Ponderosa Room at Libby City Hall, 952 E. Spruce St., from 6 to 8 p.m. A 6 p.m. presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session.