By Vernon Robison

Moapa Valley Progress

The Moapa Valley Town Advisory Board (MVTAB) expressed concerns, in a meeting on Wednesday, about traffic safety on the sewer line construction project along Moapa Valley Blvd.

MVTAB member Nate Hendricks complained that pavement conditions in temporary lanes had been rough and dangerous for traffic along the highway. Hendricks also said that temporary paint lines and orange cones placed to direct traffic flow were often confusing to drivers causing some dangerous near-miss situations.

“There have been a lot of times when motorists are confused about where the cones are directing them and end up face to face with oncoming traffic,” Hendricks said. “I think if that continues, we are eventually going to have a very serious accident.”

Metro Sergeant Bret Empey, who was in attendance at the meeting, agreed.

“When the crews are blacking out the old temporary lines they need to do it with something other than black water color,” Empey said. “As soon as they put it down it has been washing right back out again and the old lines re-appear. It gets so confusing that I don’t even know what they are doing. And I’m a police officer.”

Tim Echeverria, a Senior Civil Engineer with Clark County Water Reclamation District attended the meeting to address these concerns. He stated that work crews had struggled with keeping the temporary pavement in good repair given the cool, wet weather conditions of the past several months.

Echeverria also said that his office had received various complaints from the public about the traffic patterns and that he and the contractor had worked to solve them.

“It is a complex situation, Echeverria said. “The crews place the cones where they should go and then we have people bump them or move them; or the wind blows them over; and then you get these confusing situations that arise. But each time we have received complaints we respond by working to fix the problem.”

Echeverria encouraged the public to communicate complaints or issues to his office so that the problems could be taken care of. “Our door is open to work with the public on any problems,” he said.

People with concerns can call Echeverria at 702-668-8188; or call the Clark County Northeast Office at 397-6475.

Echeverria said that, at the end of the project, the road would be left with a clean open grade surface across the full width of the highway with all new lane striping. But it may still be a few weeks before this is finally completed, he said.

“NDOT requires that, before we put down the open grade, temperatures have to be 70 degrees and rising,” Echeverria said. “We are expecting that to be sometime in mid-May.”