11-17-2024, 08:56 PM
. The County Department of Public Works may have a reputation for moving at a snail's pace, but if every government meeting was conducted with the lightning speed of Friday's Highway 137 Project Update, people might actually get interested in civics again. Not only was this meeting held on Zoom so you could participate and drink beer at the same time, but it clocked in at eleven minutes. And that was with everything said twice. Jeez, go shopping at Malama Market on food stamp day and you'll spend more time than that standing in the checkout line.
The good news is that the DPW expects the highway between 4-Corners and Pohoiki to be finished on schedule. Of course, the contractor was given a year and a half to rebuild 3.6 miles of road, so that shouldn't be too hard. Except for the fact that at the time of this Public Service Announcement the project was at a dead standstill.
Why? Apparently the surveyors and the contractors came up with significantly different measurements of the elevation of the lava flow. Which is to say, the guy doing the bulldozing thinks there's a hell of a lot more rock there than the bid specifications state there is. And until the actual size of the mountain Mohamad has to move is determined, all work ceases.
Was this whole stop-work action caused by a surveyor who couldn't read the GPS unit output? Or is the contractor trying to squeeze some more juice out of FEMA? Or do geothermal plant operatives feel so threatened by the advancement of development into their perimeter that they are now using clandestine magma-reconfiguring methods to alter the depth of the wasteland they created with their controlled LERZ lava breach?
Regardless, everyone seems confident the deadline for completion will still be met, so there must have been quite a bit of padding stuffed into that workorder. But looking backwards, I'm not so optimistic. Here's what we've been told so far:
February 2023 Schedule Finished 2/14/2025
April 2023 Schedule Finished 5/30/2025
October 2023 Schedule Finished 9/2/2025
November 2024 Schedule Finished 3/31/2026
So, will this road and waterline be in use before Easter of 2026? Heck, I once heard of a horse accidently kicking a piglet so hard it flew, so anything is possible.
The good news is that the DPW expects the highway between 4-Corners and Pohoiki to be finished on schedule. Of course, the contractor was given a year and a half to rebuild 3.6 miles of road, so that shouldn't be too hard. Except for the fact that at the time of this Public Service Announcement the project was at a dead standstill.
Why? Apparently the surveyors and the contractors came up with significantly different measurements of the elevation of the lava flow. Which is to say, the guy doing the bulldozing thinks there's a hell of a lot more rock there than the bid specifications state there is. And until the actual size of the mountain Mohamad has to move is determined, all work ceases.
Was this whole stop-work action caused by a surveyor who couldn't read the GPS unit output? Or is the contractor trying to squeeze some more juice out of FEMA? Or do geothermal plant operatives feel so threatened by the advancement of development into their perimeter that they are now using clandestine magma-reconfiguring methods to alter the depth of the wasteland they created with their controlled LERZ lava breach?
Regardless, everyone seems confident the deadline for completion will still be met, so there must have been quite a bit of padding stuffed into that workorder. But looking backwards, I'm not so optimistic. Here's what we've been told so far:
February 2023 Schedule Finished 2/14/2025
April 2023 Schedule Finished 5/30/2025
October 2023 Schedule Finished 9/2/2025
November 2024 Schedule Finished 3/31/2026
So, will this road and waterline be in use before Easter of 2026? Heck, I once heard of a horse accidently kicking a piglet so hard it flew, so anything is possible.