Workers Press To Reopen U.S. 12 Truckers, Resort Owners Hope State Meets Saturday Target For Lewiston-Missoula Route

A Dec. 1 slide that took a bite out of a major east-west route is causing Idaho highway officials to hustle like they haven’t hustled in two decades.

“The last time we fast-tracked contracts like this was when Teton Dam broke,” said Pat Lightfield, maintenance engineer for the state Department of Transportation’s Lewiston district.

Lightfield hopes to have the 1,200-foot stretch of U.S. Highway 12 open Saturday.

No one wants that more than trucking company owners, who lose money each day the highway is closed. Resort owners along the Lewiston-to-Missoula route also are counting on holiday visitors.

“We’ve got a lot of rooms booked for the 24th,” said Barbara Foreman, an employee at Montana’s Lolo Hot Springs resort. “We’ve got our fingers crossed.”

The highway was closed when a 30-foot wall of mud, rocks, trees and boulders rushed down Noseeum Creek, 50 miles east of Kooskia. The slide created a 12-foot dam in the Lochsa River, which spilled over and washed out part of the roadway.

Repair crews have been on the job during every hour of daylight, seven days a week, said Lightfield. One of the first tasks for state workers was to replace a 13-foot-diameter pipe that had carried the creek under the highway.

They used two 9-1/2-foot pipes, because the bigger one would have made a big bump in the highway, which must be rebuilt higher than the old stretch. Besides, said Lightfield, it would’ve taken up to eight weeks to get another 13-foot pipe, “and that wasn’t acceptable.”

On Dec. 12, a Clarkston company working under an emergency contract began removing slide debris from the roadway. Another firm is putting in gravel and temporary pavement.

“We’re pushing everybody really hard,” Lightfield said.

They’re building 1,000 to 1,200 feet of road. Where there was one curve, there will now be three. The work, including laying permanent pavement next summer, will cost an estimated $486,000.

The Lochsa is a national Wild and Scenic River. The highway department is working closely with the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the land along the river, Lightfield said. Federal officials went on furlough Wednesday, and were unavailable to comment on the environmental impact of the slide and highway project.

The economic impact is clear at the Lolo Hot Springs resort, near the Montana-Idaho state line. Foreman said business is down 30 percent to 40 percent from last year at this time, she said. To make matters worse, there’s little snow to lure people who want to snowmobile or ski.

Twenty miles to the west, business is “really slow” at the Lochsa Lodge. That’s a popular place with visitors to nearby Jerry Johnson Hot Springs, an undeveloped forest site that is off-limits because of the road closure.

“A lot of people who have canceled are from Moscow, Lewiston and Pullman,” said owner Susie Denton.

Spokane people are coming, she said, because their quickest route is Interstate 90 east to Missoula, then west to the Lochsa.

A trucker headed from Missoula to Lewiston would travel 218 miles on U.S. 12. The same trip, going over I-90 and then south on U.S. 195 from Spokane, is 308 miles.

“That’s two hours,” said Dave Cook, manager of Swift Transportation Co.’s terminal in Lewiston.

Fifteen of Swift’s trucks must detour daily because of the slide. That includes trucks headed from Boise to western Montana, which now must go through Idaho Falls. The closure is costing the company $10,000 a week in wages and fuel, Cook said.

Of the 710 vehicles that travel that section of U.S. 12 each day, 200 are commercial, according to a 1994 survey. Lewiston is a transportation hub because of the Potlatch Corp. pulp and saw mills there, which ship wood and paper products; and because of the Port of Lewiston, from which products such as Montana grain are barged to Portland.

Shippers are busy trying to get products to Lewiston so they can be shipped before a January shutdown of dam navigation locks on the Snake River, said port official Mark Brigham.

“It’s a real inconvenience for them,” Brigham said of the U.S. 12 closure. “More than the inconvenience, it’s a bottom-line cost…. That highway is vital to our area.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Map: Highway 12 washout