170 Construction Put on Hold by Cold

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By Chelsea Kopta

Summary

The project inspector drove reporters around the Road 170 site. And guess who they saw? No one. That's because the cold weather literally brought the hard work to a halt.

Story Published: Jan 25, 2008 at 6:33 PM PST

BASIN CITY -- Construction was put on hold by the cold near Road 170 Friday.

Crews in yellow and orange began work this week fixing up the Road after a landslide covered it last spring.

It's a long-awaited fix for the road, but the question now is, will it get done?

"It's too bad it had to start at this time," Franklin County Project Inspector Steven Aldrich said. "The Ideal time would be right when the water shuts off."

For construction workers like Steve, timing is everything.

"We're not going to take out all this existing canal," the inspector explained about the project.

Franklin County crews are in a race to build a new route around Eoad 170.

They're also digging a new canal, laying more than a mile of pipe.

For this project, a race against the clock is a race in the cold.

"Are you cold out here? "Oh yeah, it doesn't take much," Aldrich said.

A drive around the site turned up nothing but materials.

"Yeah, it's shut down," the inspector said.

Instead of workers, tracks mark where crews started to work, abandoned excavators sat where crews started to dig.

When they tried digging workers ran into a bit of a problem.

"Yeah, just breaking through that crust," Aldrich said.

At single digit temperatures the ground was frozen solid.

"Put a nail into it," Aldrich said. "It's hard to do that right now."

So Franklin County crews called it a day.

A one day delay is no big deal but the crew in under that critical time crunch.

"It's very, very cold out but it might take a toll because this is time-sensitive," Franklin County Commissioner Neva Corkrum said.

Franklin County Commissioners invested a lot of time and more than a million bucks to help rebuild.

Crews have to wrap up the project, finishing the canal by mid-March, when irrigation water turns back on.

And if its not done, workers have to wait a whole other year to build.

So commissioners are optimistic, they're feeling the pressure of the artic air.

"The weather's unfortunate but there's nothing we can do about it so we have to live with it," Corkrum said. "I have confidence in the contractor that he'll get the job done for us."

Crews will begin work again next week.

To meet that timeline the contractor said he will beef up crews.

That means double or triple the workforce.