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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Badly Rutted Road Frustrates Community | The Alternate Road Means Driving 5 More Miles

It ripped the muffler off one resident’s car.

It sucked in the plumber’s truck. It trapped the well repairman’s tractor.

And that’s just in the last week.

Clemetson Road, a short unpaved lane that leads to a small community near Cougar Gulch, is so badly damaged by weather and wear, it’s virtually impassable.

Residents say they’ve seen two cars stuck there at once. The alternate route home for the 60 area residents adds five miles to the trek.

“I’ve been here since 1971 and this is the worst it’s ever been,” said Tom Tobin. “It’s heaved-up real bad… clear to the axles of your car.”

The 1 mile stretch of road annually becomes one of Kootenai County’s worst streets. This year’s unusual freeze-thaw-freeze-again cycle made it worse.

At the intersection with Meadowbrook Road, Clemetson is a cluster of ruts that stretch from shoulder to shoulder. The ruts, some large enough to hide a cannon barrel, stretch a quarter-mile.

A mile farther are more, deeper ruts. Most drivers don’t see them because they can’t pass the first ones.

To some residents, it’s an example of government ineptness. To others, it’s merely part of country living.

“When Mother Nature decides to do something, there ain’t much anyone can do about it,” said Tobin.

Neighbor Henry Balliet is less generous.

“The holes are more than a foot deep, and once you start twisting around in them you can’t even stay on the road,” he said. “It’s driving people crazy.”

A roofer coming to repair Balliet’s house got stuck. Neighbor Warren Ray’s car was so damaged during a recent passing it had to be towed across the trenches and into a repair shop, he said.

Residents in 1987 asked for the road to be paved, and were told it might be by 1990.

“It’s five years later and we’re still dealing with this,” said Balliet.

Worley Highway Commissioners understand the frustrations, but say they simply don’t have the $140,000 for the work.

The highway district manages 185 miles of road - 90 of them unpaved - on a $1.2 million annual budget.

“The people who live up there are really upset, and I understand,” said commissioner Ray Mobberley, who says more than half the residents have called him with complaints. “It’s a problem for everybody.”

When a well quit working a week ago, commissioners made the repairman wait until the road froze before driving in to fix it. They feared the heavy machinery would further destroy the road.

Since then, temperatures have soared, and commissioners won’t let the tractor back out. It’s trapped on a dead end road that intersects Clemetson between the two series of ruts.

“As far as I know it’s still up there,” Mobberley said. “He’s got to have that rig back in Portland by Monday, but he understands he’s not going to.”

For now, commissioners are promising a temporary chip seal job later this spring that should help. But that $10,000 bit of work must wait for warmer weather.

“It’s so bad now, our repair trucks can’t get in to do the job without making it worse,” Mobberley said.

Tobin, for one, doesn’t mind.

“In this weather, blacktop would be all heaved-up and broke too, I bet,” he said.