Photo by Patrick Ray
Story by Catherine Stachowiak
Thursday, April 25, the Kern Valley Sun pursued another update, from Kern County, regarding the progress for repair plans at Sierra Way.
Sal Gomez, Public Works Assistant Director said, “We spoke to Jeff Davis, the Capital Projects Engineer. So Right now the way that we have scheduled the project is that,
our consultant, we gave them five weeks to be able to come up a design, (for) the culverts and they’re also going to be looking at how are we going to divert that water.”
Gomez also said that the county is working on getting the environmental report results, and everything ready. Then the team would have two weeks to review the information, however Gomez hopes that it won’t take that amount of time to review.
He said, “Once everything is approved, then we’re going to give those comments back to our consultant. And hopefully at the same time, we’ll give Granite (Construction) that time, two weeks, to mobilize and get the materials.”
Gomez’s department believes Granite Construction, the contractors on the project, would take eight to ten weeks to finish the project.
Therefore the five weeks the county has, to get the design ready, though hopefully they’ll turn it in earlier, would give the county until late May followed by the review. Gomez thinks hopefully Mid June the county could be out there to move dirt and divert water.
Gomez reminded the Kern Valley Sun that the ultimate goal in the long term was to make a permanent solution. However the short-term goal is to provide a ten-year flood repair. Because the county wanted the road to handle a bad winter, with a ten-year flood design, to get it designed correctly, with culverts.
He said, “Once they get mobilized, they’ll take the time to take the equipment up there. They’ll then have to divert the water.”
Gomez promised to continue giving the Kern Valley Sun updates.
