Important Announcement: Spur Ranch Road Update 09_30_2014

Dear Neighbor,

            We've learned today that the planned repairs and dust reduction on SRR (between the RR tracks and Rte 285) has been expedited and will now take place tomorrow (Wednesday, October 1), instead of two weeks from now, as we originally believed. The reason for the new date is the accelerated delivery of dust reduction chemicals from Canada (7 large containers of 300 gallons each). As planned, the work should take one day to complete, and we've arranged for our volunteers to manage traffic during the day, starting at 9AM (when the roadwork is expected to begin.)

            Tonight, the road equipment and chemicals for tomorrow's work are parked along the south side of the road, just east of Calle Junipero. PLEASE BE CAREFUL AND GO SLOW if you need to drive that segment of the road tonight, especially if you are traveling east. It will be dark and we don't want anyone to smash into the parked construction vehicles.

Thanks very much. We're all keeping our fingers crossed that this will resolve our remaining issues with the road.

Regards,

Jim Garland, president

Spur Ranch Road Association

Spur Ranch Road Update 09_27_2014

Dear Neighbors,

As I'm sure you've noticed, the newly reworked road between Rte 285 and the railroad tracks is extremely dusty, with washboarding developing over parts of the road. Neither of these conditions is what we expected from the Bionic Soil Solution treatment, and is also not what the company itself expected. As it turns out, this surface condition was caused inadvertently when the grader operator decided to do a finish grading of the road to smooth out any remaining imperfections. Unfortunately, the road had already cured by that time, and his grading actually destroyed the cohesion of the top half inch or so of the surface. The resulting fines (small particles) are what has caused the dust, and since they lie loosely on the surface they are also responsible for the washboards. Note that the washboards are very shallow and spaced closely together. They are impacting only the very top surface of the road. The grader operator made this error accidentally, not knowing that the Bionic Soil-treated road should not be graded after it had cured. (He had not previously worked on a road with the Bionic Soil treatment and had been unable to attend a company briefing in which the caveats were spelled out.)

 

Mr. Bob Sherwin has apologized for the unsatisfactory condition of the road, and is planning to correct the problem for us within the next two weeks (plus or minus). He is bringing in a grader to scrape off the loose surface material, and then he will coat the road with a newly-developed dust control product that is intended to eliminate (or greatly reduce) any further dust problems. The new product is manufactured in Canada and has received very good reviews. He has ordered 1800 gallons of it for our road, and it will be diluted with 1800 gallons of water. He doesn't know the exact date yet for the repair (which will take one day), since he has to await delivery of the dust control product from Canada. I'll let you know when we have an exact date.

 

We will be arranging traffic control with volunteers during the repair period. One lane of the road will be open at all times during the work.

 

FYI, if you're interested in learning more about the Bionic Soil treatment, you might want to view the Channel 4 newscast tomorrow after the Sunday night football game (Saints vs. Cowboys). The Channel 4 TV crew spent a day filming Bionic Soil Solutions while the company worked on roads in the Cherokee Nation and will be reporting on its findings.  The report will follow football game at roughly 9:15-9:30 pm.

 

Regards,

Jim Garland, president

Spur Ranch Road Association  

SFSAR Blog

‘A fierce storm dumped torrents of rain in pockets of Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico on Monday night.’ This is the lead of a story on the front page of  the Santa Fe New Mexican on Wednesday, 24 September, 2014.  That rain, although not directly over Spur Ranch Road, severely impacted the road from approximately Calle Junipero  west to Rosa Linda.  We have placed traffic cones along some of the very worst places where the road bed is undercut and falling into the bar ditch. The centre of the road is safe to drive on if you drive very slowly and carefully.  In many places the bar ditches have been scoured to a depth of some 2.5 to 3 feet – please be very careful as you drive this section of Spur Ranch Road until your Road Association can effect repairs.  Repairs may occur as early as tomorrow, Thursday, 25 September.  The drainages in that area from the northeast come directly across the road - so all the rain that fell north and northeast of us drained into these drainages and flowed directly across Spur Ranch Road.   I examined an adjacent drainage yesterday just east of Ojo de la Vaca and estimated that there was flowage of water 4 feet deep and some 20 feet wide.  Spur Ranch Road was likely the recipient of a similar amount of water that had ‘delta – ed’ out by the time it reached this latitude. It is interesting to note that the drainages that flow across Spur Ranch Road are close to the northeastern end of the San Marcos Arroyo which feeds into the Galisteo River.

 

Drive carefully and slowly,

 

 

Al

Board Member,

Spur Ranch Road Association

Spur Ranch Road Washout 09_23_2014

Dear Neighbors,

Yesterday's rain seriously damaged Spur Ranch Road over a one mile length west of the railroad tracks, roughly from Calle Junipero almost to the East entrance of Rosa Linda. Water in great quantity poured over the road from the North,  through a drainage, greatly overwhelming the bar ditches and culverts. The silt and debris ruined the bar ditches along each side of the road and washed away in some places much of the gravel and road surface.  Fortunately, other parts of the road surface, though coated with mud and dirt, remain intact, most likely because earlier in the year we graded and rolled the road.

 

The road is passable for now, but the shoulders have been completely washed out along much of the damage. Additionally, the rushing water undercut the sides of the road in places, which means that the road is unstable near the sides. Vehicles should therefore avoid driving close to the sides of the road, because it could collapse undere the weight of the vehicle.

 

Ironically, none of the flooding came from rain that actually fell on the road. Our weather station showed no rainfall at all on the road itself.  The SR Road Association is soliciting bids for repair work and will try to make repairs as soon as possible. Unfortunately, there is no affordable permanent fix for this situation. This type of flooding happens every few years, although this is the worst case in the past decade. No doubt it will happen again.

 

Sincerely,

 

Jim Garland, president

Spur Ranch Road Association