05/13/2008: "Chip Seal Work to Begin on Orcas May 12"

Weather permitting; the San Juan County Public Works department will begin resurfacing nearly 27 miles of roads on Orcas Island (Full Orcas Schedule -and a link to map- at end of story) beginning on Monday, May 12.

There will be a total of 13 nonrainy working days required to complete the chip sealing, and an additional 35 days spent applying a finishing coat of emulsion, called “fog seal,” to the road’s surface after the chip seal has been put in place. If there are no serious rain delays, the work is expected to be completed by June 3.
Road crews will do more fog sealing this year than in the past. With the exception of a few experimental areas, all of the sections of road to be chipsealed on Orcas will be also be fog sealed – which means that a finishing coat of emulsion will be sprayed onto the road surface after the chipsealing is completed.

Public Works senior project engineer Rachel Dietzman notes that fog sealing increases resurfacing costs by about 25 percent, but the County has found that it dramatically decreases the amount of gravel that comes loose from the seal, improves the appearance of the road striping and should increase its durability The cost of the Orcas road project is expected to total $830,000.

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Maintenance is performed on County roads on a 6-12 year cycle with 2,530 miles resurfaced each year. To increase efficiency and reduce time lost in transporting equipment and supplies, this year the County has begun doing all of its maintenance resurfacing on a single island each year. (Next year Lopez will get all of the attention, San Juan Island’s turn will come in 2010.) All 21 members of the county’s road crew have been assigned to work on the Orcas chipsealing project.

Work will begin first on Sunset Avenue, then proceed to include portions of Obstruction Pass Road, E.J. Young Road, Point Lawrence Road, Olga Road, Rosario Road, Palisades Drive, Lindsay Way, Crescent Beach Drive, Montgomery Lane, Mt. Baker Road, Channel Road, Four Winds Road, Deer Harbor Road, Ralph Gott Road, Bartel Road, McNallie Lane, Dolphin Bay Road and Orcas Road.

A color coded map showing the roads and projected resurfacing dates on Orcas this year is available online by Clicking Here. The tentative work schedule is below in spreadsheet form. Note that road crews cannot do chipsealing on rainy days, so this schedule is subject to change.