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After one-lane closures slowed traffic across Ninilchik River and Deep Creek bridges, things are back to normal. Almost.

With the bridge resurfacing wrapping up, both north and south lanes opened on the Ninilchik bridge last week, with Deep Creek open Monday. Still to be completed is grinding of the bridge decks, repaving, signs, striping and seeding. That work won't begin, however, until resurfacing of the Kasilof Bridge is completed.

The good news is that all three bridges will be open to north- and southbound traffic for the July Fourth weekend, according to Rick Feller, legislative and media liaison for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

"(Resurfacing) of Kasilof won't start until after the Fourth," Feller said. "We're trying to coordinate with some over-sized loads coming in for a (Homer Electric Association) project. That's the singular issue that was causing us to be unsure about the date after July 4 when it will be starting up."

The Kasilof work is expected to wrap up by the end of August. Finish work on all three bridges is scheduled to take place the first part of September and will cause little disruption to traffic, according to Feller.

"What we will have are short-term, temporary lane restrictions as they need to get equipment on the bridges to paint and work on approaches, but it will be a very innocuous, short-term thing," Feller said. "It certainly won't be down to permanent lane closures going on for days, 24 hours a day as we had before."

Construction on a 19-mile stretch of the Sterling Highway also is in the planning, thanks to some federal stimulus dollars. The area begins in Soldotna and continues south almost to South Cohoe Loop.

"It's resurfacing, some guardrail upgrades and signing," said Gary Walklin, DOT project engineer.

The project is expected to cost $6 million. Bid opening was June 24, and, although the bid had not been awarded as of Friday, the apparent low bidder is Alaska Roadbuilders from Soldotna, Walklin said.

"We don't have a contractor schedule yet, but it is possible (the project) could start after the contract award and pre-construction conference, around the end of July or first of August, Walklin said.

There is an August 31 paving restriction deadline caused by weather conditions on the peninsula, but other work on the project -- pre-leveling of rutted areas, patch repair, guardrail installation and signing -- could continue through September.

"The actual project completion date is June 30, 2010. Whatever they don't finish this year, we expect an early completion after breakup and load restrictions are lifted in the spring," Walklin said, adding, "I'm sure they're geared up to do as much as they can this year."

Sloughing of the bluff between Miles 153 and 154 of the Sterling Highway has caught the attention of motorists north of Anchor Point. It also has the attention of the state, which has been monitoring it on a monthly basis for the past three years.

"At the rate we've measured the erosion over the past three years, it indicates that at the same rate, it would take 30 years to get to edge of the highway," Feller said, adding, "That doesn't mean we don't recognize that erosion can accelerate or that there can be an event that would bring that bluff line much closer to the highway than it is now."

Should the bluff disappear faster, the state's contingency plan calls for moving the highway away from the bluff.

"If it starts getting real close or suddenly something happens, we at least have probably 30 feet that we can shift over within existing right of way in quick order," Feller said. "So that would be a kind of doable, short-term response if we had a situation come about other than as predicted by the rate of erosion."

The state has submitted a request for federal funding to study relocating the Sterling Highway between Miles 150 and 157.

"The request includes $250,000 in FY 2010 for the reconnaissance study, followed by $1.5 million in FY2012 for preliminary design and environmental studies," Feller said. "Altogether, the recon study will help define the options, including potentially a new alignment and right of way needs and costs."

McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.