'A friggin' nightmare'
Residents have trouble driving on Jones Ranch Road

A horse walks down Jones Ranch Road on Tuesday morning. With heavy snow that hit the area, residents expect the road to turn into a muddy mess. — © 2009 Gallup Independent / Brian Leddy

Copyright © 2009
Gallup Independent
By Gaye Brown de Alvarez
Staff writer

CHICHILTAH — Jones Ranch Road used to be paved. Then it was full of potholes. Then the asphalt was milled and mixed with the dirt underneath. Then it snowed, then it became mud and ruts. Now, “it’s a friggin’ nightmare,” according to one resident.

Gary Langston, who lived on Jones Ranch Road, moved a couple of months ago, but still travels on the road to visit friends. The last time he went he “barely got through it” in his Nissan 4X4 truck. So he called the Independent.

Jones Ranch Road is in the checkerboard area, but is mostly on Navajo land. It starts on mile marker 15 on N.M. Highway 602 and ends at the Jones Ranch Housing, a community of 20 tribal houses.

“There’s a lot of people who live back there,” Langston said. In fact, the community of Chichiltah met Sunday at the Chapter House to ask the Navajo Nation president to declare an emergency and receive immediate attention.

Chichiltah Chapter official Eudora Jackson said in a telephone interview she estimated about 4,000 people live in that chapter. She had to walk two miles to work Monday morning, because there was no way her car could make it to the chapter house.

“The snow is over 12 inches and mud under the snow causes hardship in traveling to town for supplies, workers traveling to employment, education activities for preschool to college students and medical attention for the elderly and children,” said Raymond L. Lancer Sr., president of Chichiltah Chapter in an e-mail to the President Joe Shirley Jr.

Patrick Arthur, who has a homestead on the road, said not only is the condition of the road bad, “but it’s costing people money,” because of all the damage being done to vehicles traveling along the road. “I don’t think an ambulance could even make it.”

There are three schools back there, David Skeets Elementary, Chichiltah BIA school and a Head Start School, and Arthur isn’t sure how the buses are able to get to the schools. “Under the snow, there’s mud,” Arthur added.

The buses to the three schools have been putting up with the road conditions for some time.

“I’ve been out there several times recently,” Joe Henley, the transportation manager of Gallup/McKinley County Schools said. “Everyone got spoiled because they paved the road and then they tore it all up and now its just graded. They’re saying it will take two to 2 1/2 years getting it done. I advise people just be a little patient.”

The Navajo Engineering Construction Authority is in charge of making the road functional, and although they have an office next to the Chichiltah Chapter House, this week everybody is gone for training in Farmington. The supervisor of the NECA enterprise is Terry Patterson, who works out of NECA’s main Shiprock office.

“Jones Ranch Road is a BIA road,” he said in a telephone interview on Monday. He said the reconstruction of the road started last spring and “design problems and grade and survey issues delayed it all summer.” The sub-grade stabilization had to be eliminated, which in layman terms, means there was too much clay in the soil.

Arthur said the road was surveyed and built up, and then discovered the elevation was wrong and the 10-inch build-up had to be shaved off.

Patterson said his firm has a contract with BIA to resurface 13 miles of the road. But, he added, he can’t do any earthwork when it’s freezing, so he is anticipating getting the crew back to work sometime around March 1.

“The job is shut down for the winter,” he said.

But what about the 12 inches of snow, and more snow expected this week?

“We don’t do snow removal,” Patterson said. “The BIA is in charge of that.”

Irvin Bekis, the head of engineering and roads department for the BIA in Gallup said it was true, the BIA’s contract with NECA did not include snow removal.

Tim DeAsis, the acting superintendent for the BIA eastern agency roads, said in an interview Monday, that he just got off leave and came into town and found out about Jones Ranch Road. He said he had been in touch with Samson Sloan of the eastern agency to work out any kind of miscommunication with NECA about snow removal and he hopes to have equipment on Jones Ranch Road “momentarily” to remove snow. But, as it turned out, the Monday night snowstorm fizzled out and only traces fell.

So DeAsis made a few calls, organized a few people and got equipment out to Chichiltah. NECA assisted with the snow removal, he said. They spent all afternoon Monday and all day Tuesday making sure the road was navigable.

So the Jones Ranch Road was graded and snow was pushed off. Then, according to Eudora Jackson, the driveways into people homes that need dialysis and medical supplies were bladed. She hopes all the driveways will be graded soon because this morning she still had to walk to work.