Camino del Llano sees $2-million, 2-month delay

September 21, 2009

The City of Belen has been delivered a major blow to its effort to expand Camino del Llano west of Interstate 25 to four lanes, potentially costing the city $2 million more than it expected and delaying the project at least two months.

Construction would have begun on September 1, but prior to that the New Mexico Department of Transportation informed the city that it needed to add nearly $2 million in additional drainage improvements to its plans.

The city hoped to be able to make the roadway improvements — and then work on ponding as a second phase. The state is requiring ponding be included in the first phase.

“They’re holding us,” Mayor Ronnie Torres said. “We have to do the ponding now with this project. We didn’t expect that.”

Torres expressed frustration with the state, saying state officials have discussed the plans with the city for more than a year only to, at the last minute, notify the city about the needed ponding to control runoff from the mesa.

“It’s things that people have seen, commented on, and then they waited until we were ready to bid and they said we can’t,” he said.

Torres said the fact that the lowest bid on the project was significantly lower than expected means the city will have money to put toward ponding. He said the city will need to search around for more.

“We keep saying, ‘It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen,’ and then it stops,” Torres said. “Well, we really thought it was going to happen. This is something beyond our control.”

The project is expected to take a full year to complete once it commences.

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