The in basket: Michael Shearing of Port Orchard, in an e-mail he titled “Stigmata on Route 166?,” says, “I am curious about the mysterious perpetually weeping roadway in two places on Highway 166. One is about a mile east of Gorst in front of Tony Otto’s law office and the other is about 200 yards west of that in front of what appears to be an equipment storage lot.

“It seems like they first appeared two or three years ago and have been there every day since,” he said. “Water (I assume it’s water) is continually seeping from beneath the roadway/asphalt. No matter how hot in the middle of summer or how cold in the middle of winter (and yes, they do freeze over) these areas are always wet.

“Is this from some kind of underground spring or high water table? If it was from a broken pipe I assume it would have been fixed by now. Any idea what this is and if there are any plans to  ‘cure’ it?

The out basket: I don’t have any definitive answers for Michael, who is spot-on about the persistence of the leaking. It was there every day during our recent near-historic dry spell, never seeming to flow any faster or slower. I have to take his word about when it began.

The state highway people haven’t replied to my inquiries about this. It’s no surprise that an area at the bottom of a large hill would weep water from above, but just what it is about these two spots that provide less resistance to the water than the rest of the highway, I can’t say.

The one in front of the Otto law office looks like oil, but it’s just water. It must have a chemical component as it discolors the asphalt.

That’s not true of the other leak Michael mentioned, in the driveway of the Thompson’s Pile Driving equipment yard, or two other leaks onto Highway 166 in Port Orchard, both downhill from the roundabout in front of the Hi-Joy Bowl.

Paul Fritts, owner of Thompson’s Pile Driving next to the law office, said he got a call from a state highway official a while back asking if he had a water line leak, but he said, no, they don’t even have a water line through there. And the natural water pressure is great enough that some wells in that area don’t even need pumps, he said. He didn’t recall the name of who called.

You may have noticed mention in the Sunday Sun a while back in a caption under one of the historic pictures that run each week on the cover of the fourth section, of a one-time artesian well in downtown Port Orchard that ran constantly for years. It, too, was powered by uphill water pressure but was corralled into a pipe at the former site of Peninsula Feed, across Harrison Avenue from where it is now. It had a heavy rotten egg smell, as I recall.

Tony Otto didn’t have any explanation for the weeping in the roadway in front of his office. He wonders about danger from ice forming on the wet spot, but said he’s unaware of any accidents there.

The in basket: Jim De Lorm wrote in mid-July, “I just received a notice that the county is going to pave the cul-de-sac where I live on Friday, July 22.” It’s Fircrest Place SE, just off Fircrest Drive in South Kitsap.

“Believe me, this cul-de-sac is in perfect shape. What a waste of money. I would think the money could be put to better use some place else.”

I guessed that it might be another of the county’s pervious pavement test sites and asked if I was close.

The out basket: No, says Don Schultz, county road superintendent, it’s just regular maintenance.

“While your reader believes Fircrest Place SE is in perfect shape, our pavement management system rates the road in poor condition,” Don said.

“Roads in Kitsap County are periodically inspected and assigned a rating score. The overall score considers pavement conditions including alligator cracking, rutting, surface deterioration due to raveling or aging and other factors. The score assigned to a road relates to its relative condition. (Fircrest Place) was last paved in 1974 and has a current surface score of 32.”

On that scale, 89 to 100 is excellent, 67 to 88 is good, 49 to 66 is fair,  21 to 48 is poor and zero to 20 means failed

“Each year road supervisors review road ratings to determine the best way to utilize the limited funds available to preserve the  county road system. Based on the rating score and other factors (proximity to other projects, equipment and material availability, the ‘window’ available for this type of maintenance work) they select roads to include on our annual paving schedule (http://www.kitsapgov.com/pw/roadpave.htm).

“Systematic preventive maintenance is usually much more cost effective than waiting until a road fails,” he said. “It’s like the old FRAM oil filter cliché, ‘You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.’ By maintaining roads in the poor category before they fail, and restoring them to good or excellent condition, we keep those roads functional and ensure their use well into the future.”

The in basket: I was intrigued by an odd paving project done on Wheaton Way north of Sheridan Road the week of June 14. It was a continuous narrow strip of new asphalt after the old was dug out, running north from in front of Albertson’s in the northbound outer lane.

The state’s project information list said it would run all the way to the city limits at Riddell Road and all the way back to Sheridan. I wondered what on earth required it. It looked like perhaps some past utility trench wasn’t repaired correctly.

The out basket: The project list description was misleading, as the dig-outs and pavement replacement took on the more familiar intermittent pattern after it got north of Sylvan Way. Only a few places were patched in the southbound direction, once again near the curb.

Duke Stryker, head of maintenance operations for state highways in Kitsap and Mason counties, said the street, which to the state is Highway 303, was identified as a trouble spot in their annual spring review in which a state materials engineer drives state highways with local maintenance crews to plan the year’s pavement repair.

Duke said the outer wheel rut carved by millions of cars over the years, worsened by water accumulating against the curb, caused the deterioration. The three wheel ruts farther from the curb didn’t have the excess water to worsen the wear. The outer rut pavement was badly “alligatored” and needed replacement, he said. .

It took them a week. This week (June 21) the crews are doing similar work on Highway 3 in Gorst. Tuesday and Wednesday, they’ll be closing the Purdy Bridge at the east end of Highway 302 to repave it. The Gorst and Purdy work will be done at night. Purdy traffic will be detoured via Pine Road and other local streets during the closures.

The in basket: As I drove north on Highway 16 past the new Burley-Olalla Road interchange recently, i thought the wheel paths in the pavement had lost more of their black coloration than I would have expected. The asphalt looked more like what I see on aging parts of I-5, but without the obvious rutting and the loud tire noise. 

I asked if the asphalt wasn’t wearing well.

The out basket: The project engineer for the interchange project, Brenden Clarke, says the loss of color is normal.

“It is typical for asphalt pavement to fade to gray in about nine months,” he said. “The pavement is actually wearing well.”