By Jon Klusmire
News Staff

11-6-2007

The big, new signs are up declaring “your tax dollars (are) at work.” Monster-sized dump trucks and front-end loaders are on the ground and ready to roll. Bulldozers and other heavy equipment have started scratching away the sagebrush and sprucing up the road to the old gravel pit north of Independence.

All that means one thing: Caltrans is ready to rumble.
After years of planning, and a year of budget-induced delay, work has begun on the 14.3 mile four-lane project on U.S. 395 between Big Pine and Independence.
A ceremonial groundbreaking was recently held, featuring Caltrans officials, members of various Paiute tribes in the valley and other officials.
Now it’s time for the big rigs to start rolling through the sage-covered hills west of the current two lanes of road through the Blackrock area and cutting another pair of lanes alongside the existing strip of blacktop.

Representing the Big Pine Paiute Tribe during the recent groundbreaking for the Blackrock four-lane project were Don Bacoch (l) and Bobby Piper, who played traditional Paiute flute music during the ceremony. Photo courtesy Caltrans

Looking farther down the road, new monitoring wells have already been drilled in the Manzanar area to take the place of those that will literally be run over by that section of new four-lane road in a little more than a year.
The new strip of road through the Blackrock area that is seeing action right now will begin right where the current four lanes of highway ends south of Big Pine near Tinnemaha Reservoir and end when it hits the existing section of four-lane at the Fort Independence Reservation.
Motorists shouldn’t be running into many construction-related obstacles or delays, since the the two new lanes are located adjacent to the existing road, so crews will be able to work on the new lanes without interrupting the existing flow of traffic, said Susan Lent, public information officer for Caltrans Region 9. Of course, there will be times when moving equipment or other types of work will require some delay on the existing two-lane, but those events won’t be extensive, she noted.
The overall cost of the project came in at $43 million, which includes all the environmental work, planning, staff time, etc.
The actual construction contract was for $28 million, said Lent.
The work is slated to continue through all of 2008, and be completed by the middle of 2009, she said. Original estimates put the total construction time at 18 months.
Although the road-building project is fairly straightforward, Lent noted that “they have to move a whole bunch of dirt and black rock” to cut a nice, level road through several areas.
The four-lane work has been a top priority for Inyo County for many years.
Once the Blackrock project is completed, U.S. 395 will be four-laned through Inyo County from Bishop to several miles north of Independence.
Putting two more lanes along the little stretch of two-lane road from basically the turnoff to the Mt.Whitney Fish Hatchery on into Independence, however, has created some controversy.
The current plan calls for cutting down the large, old trees along the road at the north end of town. The four-lane road would also come quite close to some existing homes.
Work on that section of the project, though, won’t start until 2008.
At that time, Caltrans will move to extend the four-lane road to Independence and also four-lane U.S. 395 from south of Independence past Manzanar to the next section of four-lane road, which starts right at the L.A. Aqueduct and the Alabama Gates area north of Lone Pine. Also included will be improvements to the highway, parking and sidewalks in Independence.
That project, which is also expected to have a final, total price tag of about $40 million, will get under way in 2008, said Lent.
That means there will be a little overlap with crews working on the Blackrock section and the Independence/Manzanar project at the same time.
Work is also getting started to get a gravel pit on the outskirts of Independence up and running. The pit, which is located on an 80-acre site northwest of Independence, has been used by Caltrans as a gravel pit on and off from 1957 to 1991.
Besides supplying gravel to the two four-lane projects, the pit will also be home to temporary asphalt and concrete batch plants, a move that Caltrans said saved it money and minimized the visual impact of the plants.
According to Caltrans, plenty of gravel will be moved out of the pit before there is a need for asphalt or concrete. Thus, when it’s time to put asphalt down on the Blackrock road, an asphalt batch plant will be moved into the pit. Since it will be sitting down in the pit itself, motorists on U.S.  395 will not see the entire batch plant.
Then, during times when no asphalt is needed on either project, the temporary batch plants will not stay in the pit.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the Inyo County Water Department are getting ready for the construction in the Manzanar area. Four new monitoring wells have been drilled in the area, and are operational. Those wells will replace the four that are in the four-laning’s way, and will be replaced. The county and LADWP will have at least one year of overlapping data from the new and existing wells before the roadwork takes out the old wells.