Friday, December 30, 2011

Spur Ranch Road Update

Dear Neighbors,

The RoadPacker distributor, Bob Sherwin, wants to take advantage of the warm dry weather to start rebuilding our road immediately. Today, as you may have noticed, a grader began this project by clearing the dirt out of the side ditches. This is the material that was scraped off the road surface after our recent rains. This material is now piled temporarily along the edges of the road, but soon will be mixed into the newly purchased clay, along with the top three inches of the existing road subsurface.

 

The real work will begin Monday morning and will take most if not all of the work week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, dump trucks will deliver 1600 tons of the new clay to the site, which is about four times the amount of that was previously imported. This new clay comes from Espanola, has been lab tested, and looks to be excellent, with an actual clay percentage of 48% (roughly twice the previous clay mix) and a CEC (measures stickiness) of 28, well above the 15 required minimum.

 

Thursday and Friday will be spent mixing the new clay into the existing surface (to a depth of 6 inches), adding more RoadPacker product, followed by grading, sculpting, and rolling of the new surface. At that point the road will be completed, ready to drive on, and – knock on wood – waterproof. Assuming everything goes as planned, this long saga will be finally behind us.

 

During the roadwork next week, it would be helpful to minimize trips along the road to the extent possible. Avenue de Los Compadres is currently IMPASSIBLE, based on a test drive this afternoon in a large 4WD truck. Don’t even think about trying it. Instead, the contractor will keep one lane of SRR open at all times, with walki-talkie bearing flag persons coordinating traffic at each end of the road. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but there doesn’t seem to be any alternative.

 

Volunteers from the community are needed to help coordinate traffic, beginning Monday. (We’ll supply the walki-talkies and organize shifts.)  I’d really appreciate it if you could lend a hand in making things go as smoothly as possible. Kerry Armour is our SRRA traffic czar (czarina?), and so if you can help please give her a call at 983-4055, or email her at kerry_armour@hotmail.com.

 

Thanks very much, and Happy New Year to all.

Jim

 

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