Officials with the Town of Coupeville announced late last month that the Madrona Way project will be suspended until spring.

Madrona Way will remain closed to through traffic, only open to the residents, as it has been during the construction period.

The issue, said former Mayor Nancy Conard before she left office, is that with so much rain in the last two months, crews have been unable to lay the asphalt.

“It was a hard decision to make,” Conard said. “But we figured with the money we’re spending on this, we want to make sure we did it right.”

As of Dec. 22, the town’s wastewater treatment plant had recorded 4.5 inches of rain in December.

“It’s just too wet to lay asphalt,” Conard said. “At this time, our contractor and engineer are recommending that we stop work and apply the asphalt next year, as soon as we get a break in weather. This could occur between February and April, depending on temperatures and rainfall.”

The first phase of the project, which included replacing water and sewer lines and installing a sewer lift station at the intersection of Madrona Way and Vine Street, was substantially completed Dec. 24. All water and sewer lines were replaced and reconnected to the existing homes earlier this fall. The lift station was expected to be fully operational by Christmas.

Under Phase 2 of the project, stormwater collection lines, drains, ditches and swales have been constructed and are operational. The road base has been completely rebuilt. Compacted gravel walking paths are installed.

A letter was being issued to residents along the project site and the contractor was going to be removing equipment and cleaning up the area for through traffic.

The speed limit through the area is 25 mph and shouldn’t cause too many problems with the unfinished road, Conard said. The contractor will also come as needed and regrade the road.

The project was originally slated to start in June, but didn’t begin until mid-July. The original end date for the project was October, but was bumped to the first week in November.

“We knew we had an aggressive schedule to complete the job before weather interfered and had a contingency plan to install an initial layer of asphalt in the winter and follow up with a final layer in spring,” Conard wrote in the letter. “Unfortunately, the very heavy rains near Thanksgiving precluded that from occurring.

“Then, when we had a break in rain, the temperatures dropped and we could not put asphalt down on a frozen road bed. Unfortunately, that was followed by the very heavy rains the first two weeks in December.”