The Lacamas Park Bridge and the Round Lake Dam Are One Fall Project

Since August, the northeast corner of Lacamas Regional Park has been fenced off. Clark County is replacing a bridge on the park's main access road, and the reopening date has slipped. The county first targeted Nov. 15. The Columbian reported on Oct. 8 that the work is now likely to wrap up in late November or early December.

The second closure, a small area near the Round Lake dam, is tied to the first. The City of Camas had to delay its dam repairs because of that bridge, and the county's bridge project is what finally gave the dam contractor a way in.

A bridge built from two rail cars

The old crossing was two repurposed rail cars laid over the creek. After decades outdoors, the cars had rusted and corroded. Evelyn Ives, the county parks project manager, told The Columbian the bridge was still considered safe for pedestrians. The worry was that it would collapse under a work truck. The county started inspecting every bridge in its parks system a few years ago because so many were decades old and deteriorating. This one is the result.

The pedestrian rating matters less than it sounds, because this bridge carries the main access road through the park, used by walkers and maintenance vehicles alike. The county's July closure notice put it plainly. The bridge had to be replaced to keep providing safe vehicle access for maintenance crews. A park road that can't carry a truck limits what can be maintained beyond it.

The replacement is a prefabricated steel structure with a concrete deck. It will be about 12 feet wide, down from roughly 20, and 5 to 10 feet longer on each side of the creek. The budget looks like this:

Ives said the project is running about $70,000 under budget. By these figures, Nutter's construction bid comes to less than the design, survey and permitting costs put together. In a park the county treats as an entirely environmentally sensitive area, that split makes sense.

The dam project that was waiting on it

Camas took ownership of the two dams on Round Lake in 2018, and the Washington State Department of Ecology inspects them every year. Recent inspections recommended replacing the four timber spillway gates on the Upper Dam, which show decay and corroded hardware. All four run off a single drive with a selector lever that picks which gate moves. City staff called that setup cumbersome and near the end of its service life. The Upper Dam's sluice gate and the Lower Dam's knife gate are worn out too.

The council approved a design contract with Stantec back in 2023. The May 18, 2026 council staff report explains the three-year gap. Access was the problem. A closed bridge in Lacamas Park pushed the project back. With the county replacing that bridge this year, the dam contractor can use the temporary access road to reach the east side of the Upper Dam.

The same report calls this the first significant improvement to the Upper Dam since the city took it over.

The work swaps the timber gates for stainless steel ones, each with its own actuator, replacing the single-drive system. The city expects longer service life, less leakage and less maintenance. These are the gates that manage water levels in both Lacamas Lake and Round Lake, and the upgrade adds the option of operating them remotely later. The city doesn't say in the staff report whether the work will change lake levels this fall.

The city opened six bids on May 6, ranging from $406,912 to $635,392, against an engineer's estimate of $529,354.43. 2KG Contractors came in lowest at $406,912. The city puts the total project cost at $478,203, paid from its Stormwater Fund.

Why the bridge site has looked empty

Anyone walking past the fencing lately has probably seen no one working. The pause comes from the order the work had to happen in, set by the creek. According to the county's Sept. 18 update, crews removed the old bridge and cleared debris from an old culvert in August, during the permitted in-water work window. Since then, design calculations for the new foundation have been under review, and on-site work resumes once those plans are approved.

Ives told The Columbian that the contractor is working through submittals, the material and equipment requests every construction job goes through. She added that in a normal situation the county probably would have just pushed the start date back. The environmental permits didn't allow that, because the removal, demolition and in-water work all had to fit inside the window. So the creek work went first, and everything else is on hold until the paperwork catches up.

Ives also explained why there is no detour. "The bridge is such a critical piece of this trail section that there isn't really a safe detour," she told The Columbian. One Camas resident told the paper the construction site cuts the park in two, so cyclists who used it as a safe route across town have lost that route. The same article reports that fencing on one trail was cut down so many times that Nutter Corp. left that trail open. Ives called it "a losing battle." The county continues to ask visitors to stay out of work areas whether or not crews are on site.

The dates on the map

The county's closure map dates from July and hasn't caught up with the newer estimate. Here is the timeline from all three public sources:

1. Aug. 1: Northeast-corner trails close for the bridge project.
2. August: Old bridge and culvert debris removed during the in-water window.
3. Sept. 15: Dam maintenance work area on the southwest side of Round Lake begins. Trails stay open, and flaggers direct walkers when city equipment moves along them.
4. Nov. 15: End date printed on the map for both work areas.
5. Late November or early December: The bridge completion estimate as of Oct. 8.

The county says it will post schedule updates on its Lacamas Regional Park page as new information comes in. The park is open 7 a.m. to dusk at 3344 NE Everett St.

Where the walking still works

The two work zones are at opposite ends of the park. The bridge closure is in the northeast corner, and the dam work is on the southwest side of Round Lake, so most routes outside those two areas are still usable. Near the dam, the main change is waiting for a flagger.

The Washington Trails Association route includes an optional 0.7-mile loop through the Camas Lily Fields. The blooms that give the fields their name come mid-April to mid-May, so in October it is a quiet meadow loop. The Lacamas Creek Trail starts from the downtown side, so it reaches Lower Falls and McEnry Bridge without starting at the Round Lake lot. Its best color is still a few weeks off. The Heritage Trail runs between Heritage Park and the NE Goodwin Road trailhead, and the Washington Trails Association describes it as mostly gravel, wide and groomed.

Once both projects are done, there will be a narrower steel bridge where the rail cars stood, and stainless steel gates at the Upper Dam where the timber gates used to be. County crews also plan to replant native plants and deal with runoff that staff found eroding the ground at the edge of the bridge.

A rail-car bridge that still held walkers but couldn't be trusted under a truck is a familiar situation in a house as well: a structure that feels fine day to day but has fallen behind what it is expected to carry. If you own an older Camas home and want to know which aging components to deal with before you list, Dawn Jensen-Beaudoin can walk the property with a contractor's eye and give you a free home valuation based on its actual condition.