California 150 Repairs Extended Until February

Repair crews working to rebuild California 150 after winter rockslides tore away huge chunks of the highway will not complete the job until at least February--months longer than expected, officials say.

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Slipping rocks and the need to replace a portion of a vital water main beneath the roadway have slowed workers, who had planned to reopen the highway before the end of November.

The primary link between the Ojai Valley and Santa Barbara County, State Route 150 has been closed between California 33 and Carpinteria since January when Ventura County was pelted by a series of fierce winter storms.

For most of 1995, thousands of Ojai Valley drivers on their way north have been forced to head to Ventura before taking the Ventura Freeway to Carpinteria or Santa Barbara.

Those drivers will have to continue their circuitous route at least through February. But the repairs could take even longer if rainy weather forces intermittent work stoppages.

Dozens of streets and highways throughout the county were closed by storm damage this past winter, including a stretch of the Ventura Freeway, which was shut down twice because of severe flooding.

Virtually every other thoroughfare was reopened within weeks of the last series of major storms, which passed in early March. But California 150 remains impassable.

“We’ve had to go out of sequence from the way the job was put together originally,” said Gary Ethier, the state Department of Transportation engineer in charge of rebuilding California 150.

“That’s a result of identifying the waterline located in the road at that point,” he said. “This is the major water service for virtually everyone who lives along the ocean from Carpinteria to just north of Ventura.”

The pipeline is an 18-inch water main operated by the Casitas Municipal Water District. It is buried three feet beneath the highway and was severed earlier this year by landslides, temporarily cutting off fresh water to thousands of residents.

Steve Wickstrum, the water district’s civil engineer, said that when the pipeline was constructed in the late 1950s, it was buried as close to the hillside as possible.

“Because of some of the damage they’ve had, Caltrans has had to move the road over a few times,” he said. “But it’s an excellent deal for us because we get a new pipeline.”

More than 200 feet of the water main will be replaced, a job Caltrans contractors did not expect when the $2.4-million contract was initially awarded to C. A. Rasmussen earlier this year, Ethier said.

But the company has been able to make up the difference through cost cutting elsewhere, he said.

“The revisions saved some money, but other problems have taken some money,” Ethier said. “So far, though, we’re still within our budget.”

Construction crews have had to realign a portion of the roadside creek, erect a retaining wall and install “rock slopes” to prevent continuing landslides.

“Since we’ve been on the job, we’ve probably lost another 10 feet of roadway” into the creek, Ethier said. “If we lose another five to six feet, the water line’s going to go along with the road, and that would be a disaster for everyone.”

Rasmussen project engineer Randy Almanza said his company has been using the most advanced techniques to stabilize the hill.

“It isn’t your normal construction project.” Almanza said. “They’re using state-of-the-art construction techniques to combat these slide problems, so it’s a fairly interesting project.”

Nonetheless, the continuing road closure grates against Ojai Valley realtor Don Edwards, who works from an office at the intersection of California 33 and 150.

Throughout the summer, Edwards waged a campaign to get Caltrans to erect signs along California 33 to alert drivers that California 150 is closed. No such warnings have been installed.

“Caltrans said they needed $1 million for a sign,” Edwards said Friday, weary of watching from his office as 18-wheel vehicles were turned around in the middle of California 150. “I would have thought they would be able to come up with something a little less expensive.”

Caltrans officials contend that the road closure has been publicized enough so that no such signs are necessary.