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Washington County

Posted: Oct 04, 2019 2:15 PMUpdated: Oct 04, 2019 2:17 PM

Deer Creek Project Still Undergoing Construction

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Garrett Giles

The Deer Creek Project in District 1 of Washington County is on-going after it was let in 2018.

Commissioner Mitch Antle said the project got underway late last year, and it was supposed to be completed within 6-months of the start date. He said it is nowhere near being completed as we start rolling through the month of October.

These projects are great, Commissioner Antle said, because County government cannot always do these projects apart from a larger group. The Commissioner added that the problem that persists is that there are issues with the functions and it becomes a problem of the system.

Commissioner Antle said if you are a contractor and you get put into a situation where weather is bad or material delivery is off, you are going to pull away from a project doesn't have an enforcement mechanism to a project that does. He said he understands and respects that from a contractor’s perspective.

However, the frustration for Commissioner Antle is that this process with the Deer Creek project has put the community of Dewey in a bad situation. Issue after issue has come about in the Deer Creek project that keeps pushing this project further away from completion.

For example, a water line that wasn't deep enough was hit recently, so they had to fix the line and place it deeper. Commissioner Antle said there is disconnects that they try to eliminate in the pre-construction meetings that sometimes get overlooked.

Another preconstruction design that was addressed was the intersection at 1500 Road and 3980 Road. Crews had planned on closing that entire intersection down but Commissioner Antle said that could not happen because of the two quarries that operate out of the area and Oilfield Pipe & Supply that relies on access to that intersection as well.

Thankfully, traffic was able to move through the area while construction was underway. That portion of the project is now complete. Before Washington County can take over the Deer Creek project, the intersection of 1400 Road and U.S. Highway 75 had to be closed because of the major widening project in the area.

Commissioner Antle said the frustration there for a while was that they tore out a portion of that intersection as a necessity, but they also tore out the end of the same mile section of road. That had land locked residents that lived between those two areas.

Alternate routes are now being used. Commissioner Antle said the Deer Creek Project as a whole was on the books to be built 10 years before he took office. He said this project has been waiting for approximately 15 years to be completed, which adds to the frustrations in the delays in the project that are currently being felt.


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