Mudslide Closes Highway 410, Ecology Youth Corp Making Difference

It's closed the highway because of the debris. The Washington State Department of Transportation hopes to have the road opened by Saturday, but say it might not reopen until Sunday. There is nearly 2,000 cubic feet of debris to remove.

Firefighters, police and plows were at the scene of the closed the section of State Route 410 Thursday and Friday moving mud and debris off the road.

Firefighters said the ground is still moving in the area and it is a very dangerous situation. They do not know how many people might be trapped between different sections of the landslide if any.

No word on when the roadway will be reopened.

Rod Hankinson is the Regional Litter Administrator with the Department of Ecology who says the kids concentrated a lot on Interstate 82.

“They picked up more than 52,000 pounds of trash throughout the region.”

That was just the work on Interstate 82 in Eastern Washington. The six ecology youth corps teams picked up more than 140 thousand pounds of trash on roads through the region this summer.

Hankinson says the EYC is an important part of an overall ecology-coordinated effort that each year removes more than 3,500 tons of litter and illegally dumped materials statewide.