A. Lakes road work starting

While U.S. Forest Service officials scramble to find money to repair Baker County roads damaged by flooding earlier this month, contractors are ready to start work on a major forest highway job that has already claimed a share of last year’s $787 billion federal stimulus bill.

Workers from High Desert Aggregate and Paving of Redmond will begin repaving a 10-mile stretch of the Anthony Lakes Highway this week.

Drivers should expect delays of as long as one hour as work continues through the summer.

The 10-mile section includes the Anthony Lakes area.

The project, which includes repaving, chip-sealing and work to reduce rock fall, runs from the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest boundary at Gorham Butte Road to the Ladd Canyon Road junction near Grande Ronde Lake.

Crews will fill cracks and apply chip-sealing on about 6fi miles, mostly between Gorham Butte Road and the Van Patten Lake trailhead road. That section is in relatively good shape.

From the Van Patten road up the grade to Anthony Lakes, the road is pockmarked with potholes and riddled with cracks.

On that section crews will grind away the existing asphalt (what’s left of it, anyway) and essentially rebuild the highway from the ground up.

The Anthony Lakes Highway is part of the Elkhorn Drive Scenic Byway, the 106-mile route that encircles the Elkhorn Mountains. The byway, which also passes through Sumpter, Granite and Haines, begins and ends in Baker City.

The Anthony Lakes Highway project is one of three jobs planned on the Wallowa-Whitman this year. The forest received $6.4 million in stimulus money for the three projects, Forest Supervisor Steve Ellis said in a press release.

The two others are:

• Crane Flat, along the Elkhorn Scenic Byway about five miles north of Granite.

Just Bucket Excavating of Salem will be repairing the road and installing a new culvert.

Delays of up to one hour are possible this week.

• B-Vine timber sale, Forest Road 4665 reconstruction.

This loop road starts at Coyote Campground

B-Vine Timber Sale road reconstruction is along Forest Road 4665.  This loop road begins at Coyote Campground off Forest Road 46 north of Enterprise. Iron Triangle Construction from John Day is the contractor. Work will take approximately two weeks to complete. Temporary road closures will cause some traffic delays.

For more information and updates about road construction affecting traffic, please visit the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest Web site at www.fs.fed.us/r6/w-w or contact the nearest Forest office.