SQUIDFRY 09.07.17: Mind the Gap

MIND THE GAP… When given a choice, Squid usually picks the shortcut. For that reason (among others, such as safety for kids getting to school), Squid is enthusiastically awaiting the opening of a pedestrian bridge in Castroville that gives safe passage over the railroad tracks, anticipated to open in February 2018. The $10.6 million project is still on schedule, says Enrique Saavedra, Monterey County’s acting chief of public works for roads and bridges, but contractors discovered a snafu: One of about a dozen support columns is in the wrong spot, so the bridge will be realigned into an S-curve.

Saavedra says the problem came when a county survey team marked the wrong location. “In laymen’s terms, we put an X where the hole is supposed to be, and [the construction team] drilled where the X is,” he says. “X marks the spot.” Saavedra says there was going to be some curvature to the bridge to begin with, so he doesn’t think it will be obvious. He doesn’t yet know the cost of the mix-up, and adds contractor Viking Construction is not to blame, but the county team that made original marks.

Squid is reconsidering Squid’s idea of shortcuts, and starting to think the longer, more methodical way – especially when building bridges – might be the better option.

BULLET POINTS… Squid has sat through enough long meetings to know what some public officials are thinking: Just get it over with, I want to go home.

Such was the case when the California Coastal Commission met July 12 and – as day turned to night – the commissioners approved a State Parks campground in Fort Ord Dunes State Park, on an area once used as a rifle training range. Some members of the public voiced concerns about lead contamination at the site, among them Mike Weaver, co-chair of the Fort Ord Community Advisory Group. Weaver urged the commissioners to delay the proposal to be looked into further. But Coastal Commission Executive Director John Ainsworth said there’d been “extensive documentation” of the site, and that it had all necessary approvals from the state’s Department of Toxic Substances Control. The commissioners approved a permit. It turns out, however, that documentation wasn’t so “extensive” after all: DTSC sent State Parks a letter July 19 to say they were still waiting on State Parks’ required annual reports of the site dating back to 2007. The next day, State Parks replied to say all is well: no concentration of bullets had been found on the property since 2006, even with “daily inspections.” Maybe they’re busy looking at breaching whales instead of at the ground, because after Weaver reported recently spotted bullets to public officials, State Parks wrote to DTSC: “We removed surface lead bullets and reported them to the U.S. Army for pickup and disposal.” About that permit…