NE 10th Ave & Whipple Creek Bridge Roadway Improvements

Clark County connected NE 10th Avenue between NE 154th Street and NE 164th Street by building a new bridge over Whipple Creek and creating 0.6 miles of new roadway. Roadway improvements included the widening of two travel lanes; a new center turn lane, bicycle lanes, and sidewalks; and intersection improvements.

Why does this project matter?

This project completes a portion of the planned transportation network for this region to improve local traffic circulation, enhance public health and safety, and support existing land use and zoning. The new transportation connection enables improved response times for emergency responders and provides the required secondary access to the Clark County Fairgrounds, which has two State emergency designations.

What is ESA doing to help?

As the environmental lead, ESA prepared all National and State Environmental Policy Acts (NEPA and SEPA) documentation, including numerous discipline reports and technical memorandums. ESA also provided environmental permitting services to meet federal, state, and local requirements, including a 57-acre wetland delineation and functional assessment; wetland, stream, and habitat mitigation design; critical areas permitting; biological assessment; Joint Aquatic Resources Permitting Application (JARPA); Sole Source Aquifer Checklist; and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Construction Stormwater Permit Application and stormwater pollution prevention plan (SWPPP). In addition, ESA provided hydrologic and hydraulic analysis and floodplain permitting for the new bridge and mitigation site as well as bank stabilization and erosion and sediment control design.

Because of ESA’s thorough documentation of the project’s effects on the environment and careful collaboration with both the consultant and County design teams to avoid major environmental impacts, the project qualified for a Documented Categorical Exclusion (DCE) rather than an Environmental Assessment (EA) as originally anticipated. This resulted in substantial cost savings and enabled the project to go out to bid and begin construction nearly a year earlier than expected.