Pahrump’s Leslie Street freshly paved, county to tackle finish work
Leslie Street in the Pahrump Valley has a fresh new coat of asphalt, with paving of the 1-mile stretch between Irene Street and Basin Avenue concluding as of June 1. There is, however, still some finishing work to be done before the project is complete, tasks that, just as the prep work conducted before the paving was laid, will be handled by Nye County Public Works crews.
The Leslie Street improvements started several months ago, with Nye County road crews ripping up the existing asphalt and readying the area for Wulfenstein Construction Co., which won the contract for the paving with its bid of $443,607.95.
“The Leslie paving was completed late last night so all of Leslie (between Irene Street and Basin Avenue) has brand-new asphalt on it, including the asphalt on the driveways that were there that we widened the road to,” Nye County Public Works Director Tim Dahl said during the Nye County Commission’s June 2 meeting.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do to clean that up, to address the other driveways, to shoulder up to the new asphalt thickness, so we are still working on that. Striping, we still have to stripe it,” Dahl continued. “In the meantime, if we can continue to ask the public to give us a break so to speak and have a little patience, we’ll be done with that before you know it.”
Dahl said his department will shift its focus to other tasks.
“We’re going to be continuing to work on the rights of way,” Dahl stated. “With all of our resources focused on Leslie for the last significant amount of time, we’re going to be diving back in on the weeding and all the other patching activities that we normally would be doing this time of year without a big project like that.”
Public works is preparing for another major project targeting roads in Amargosa Valley that were damaged by the construction of the Sunshine Valley Solar Project.
“Anvil and Power Line roads, we have proposals that should be submitted tomorrow,” Dahl said. “We had a pre-bid meeting, a video conference full of contractors to bid on Anvil and Power Line. We should be getting those bids in tomorrow. I am really excited and hopeful that we’ll get some bids that are within our budget means.”
Submitted bids will go before the Nye County Commission.
Commissioner Donna Cox asked for clarification on the Anvil and Power Line roads project.
“Anvil and Power Line are portions of a solar project’s construction routes,” Dahl said. “The solar project out there in Amargosa had a construction route they chose to use solely to get materials in and out of their property, so they paid for the damage they have done to those roads from their commercial activity. For example, there were a couple hundreds trips a day that they did to those roads to access their property for, I think it was, 363 days, for the duration of the construction of that.”
He added that this project will include pulverization of the existing road surface and repaving of approximately 7 miles.
“That’s one hell of a project that’s happening out in Amargosa,” Commissioner Leo Blundo remarked. “There’s been a lot of work bringing that forward and getting that together.”
Contact reporter Robin Hebrock at rhebrock@pvtimes.com
DuraPatcher going to work again
In mid-2019 the Nye County Regional Transportation Commission gave the go-ahead for Nye County Public Works to acquire a new DuraPatcher, a machine used to provide a more permanent solution to the ever-present pothole problems throughout the entire county, and after spending the winter and spring months sitting dormant due to a lack of the oil necessary to operate the machine, public works is readying to put the DuraPatcher back to work this summer.
"We have received our 1,000 gallon portable storage tank that we can utilize throughout all of Nye County for the DuraPatcher," Nye County Public Works Director Tim Dahl told the Nye County Commission on June 2, a statement that elicited a round of delighted comments from the board. "We're going to be getting the DuraPatcher going. Before the end of the week, we'll go out and get some oil."
Dahl said he was aiming to see the DuraPatcher out and operating some time next week, noting, "Of course, we have to run it through the paces and we have to do task training on it, so everybody knows how to operate it safely and all that good stuff. Then we will get that thing out there and get it working in no time at all… So I am excited about tackling that list of potholes that just won't leave us alone, no matter how many times we fill them with cold mix."
Dahl said the DuraPatcher will be put to use in both the north and south ends of the county, remarking that there would be plenty of oil to operate that machine for the remainder of the summer.
During his road report, Dahl also touched on his recent review of patches previously laid in the northern part of the county and it was obvious that he was extremely pleased with the results that he saw.
"They're beautiful, they're smooth, they're durable, they're not chunking out. I'm very impressed with that DuraPatcher and I'm excited to keep using it," Dahl said.
Anyone wishing to report a road issue to the public works department can do so by going online to nyecounty.net and clicking on the "Road Maintenance Request" link under "Quick Links".
