The Idaho Transportation Department recently awarded a $640,000 contract to Airway Heights-based transportation contractor West Co. to do repair and maintenance work on seven bridges and overpasses on Interstate 90 between Coeur d'Alene and Wallace.

West Co. project manager Nate McKinley says work on those bridges and overpasses is scheduled to take place this summer and will involve patching, sealing, and applying an epoxy overlay to the structures' driving surfaces. He says the company plans to work on the seven structures simultaneously.

The contractor also is to repair drainage structures and make any needed repairs to the bridges' joints, he says.

The westernmost structure to be worked on as part of the project is the east Mullan Trail Road bridge, which crosses I-90 east of Coeur d'Alene and 17 miles from the Washington-Idaho state line, McKinley says.

Moving east, the next structure to be repaired is the Bennett Bay Veteran's Memorial Bridge on which I-90 crosses Sunnyside Road just north of Lake Coeur d'Alene's Bennett Bay, followed by the I-90 overpass over Evergreen Road, just over a half-mile east of the Bennett Bay bridge. Another half-mile east of that overpass, Yellowstone Trail Road crosses the interstate via an overpass, and McKinley says that structure also is part of the project.

About one mile east of Yellowstone Trail Road, the Blue Creek Bay Bridge over the Lake Coeur d'Alene bay of the same name also will receive repairs, he says.

The easternmost structures in the project are in Wallace, about 40 miles east of the lake. One structure there is a bridge that crosses a frontage road of I-90 near milepost 61. The remaining portion of the project involves repairs to the on- and off-ramps of the Canyon Creek Road interchange, McKinley says.

Idaho Transportation Department spokeswoman Barbara Babic says that impacts to traffic during construction should be minor, but that some lane closures will occur.