There are always many questions by the lot owners as to what projects are ongoing and why “my road is not fixed”! We have been holding off on repairs to the roads while waiting to see if the water bond project was going to pass. Now that the water board has decided to move forward with the project, we can now prioritize our road projects.

John B. and I attended a meeting with some of the water board members this week and worked on a plan as to what part of the mountain they would suggest to the contractor he work on first. I have been holding off on applying any new road base to the roads that will be dug up (approximately 18+ miles of road) when the new water pipe is laid as this would be a waste of our dollars. If we laid down new base now the new base would be mixed into the dirt and then reapplied. This does not make for a good road base.

It looks like the water contractor will start laying pipe in early September. The water company will probably ask for them to start on the upper part of the mountain (as that is where most water leaks are) and a second crew start on the west side. If snow hits the upper mountain early this year, that crew will probably move to the west lower side.

As the pipe is laid in the ground on the side roads those roads will be put back to some improved condition and then most will receive an additional 3 inches of road base added to the surface. Our road guys will be working ahead of the pipe laying crews making sure that the roads are widened where and when possible and that excess dirt from the pipe trench is used to improve certain road dips and humps. Our biggest challenge is that we have only two road guys, while the pipe laying company may have up to four crews available for this project at any one time. Math says we cannot keep ahead of all the pipe crews with just our two guys so we will be working on the areas that need the most work as our priority.
We will be evaluating all the intersections and trying to figure out how we can improve them, if possible, if and when we have excess dirt and time available.

Our original intent was to have the pipe crews do Blue Spruce first so we could improve that road. After some additional consideration we decided to do Blue Spruce last as there will be a large volume of heavy trucks going up and down that road in relation to the water pipe project which could cause considerable damage to that section of the road.

There is no doubt that the main roads will be in very poor shape for the next 1-2 years. We will do the best we can to keep the roads graded and as smooth as possible.

In a project of this nature there are a lot of “ifs”, “when” and “buts”. We have a road crew of two men and a whole lot of work to do with very little money. Please be patient with us over the next few years. When we are all through I think the mountain will defiantly be in the best shape is has been in years.

Thanks for your patience.

Gary Hume
Road Guy