Plan for Highway 132 bypass in west Modesto revving up

Dirt hills contaminated with barium would be capped with pavement in a future freeway west of downtown Modesto, says a key study for which hundreds of anxious neighbors have waited several years.

The draft environmental impact report for a $214 million Highway 132 bypass paralleling Kansas Avenue contains answers to other important questions, such as how many homes might be sacrificed – 32, plus 11 businesses. Information identifying those at risk is buried deep in the 840-page document, although some appears in print so tiny it isn’t legible.

Construction could start late next year, and the freeway might open to traffic in 2020, the study says.

Government leaders say they’re happy to finally share with the public an official document with mounds of information. It’s available online and at a local transportation office, and people are invited to learn more and comment at a drop-in open house meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 22 at the Red Event Center, 921 Eighth St., Modesto.

“This is a huge milestone for the region,” said Rosa Park, the Stanislaus Council of Governments’ executive director. Leaders in her agency and others have planned for six decades for a smoother flow toward the Bay Area, saving driving time and boosting Modesto’s profile.

Previous public meetings in 2012 and 2014 drew scores of neighbors, many concerned about health risks, property values, and freeway lights and noise. Some have monitored StanCOG meetings for years, waiting for the recently released environmental document.

State officials for years have said no one is getting sick or dying from dirt laced with heavy metals, including barium, strontium and lead, in the fenced-off hills. An error 2 1/2 years ago prematurely revealed the government’s preference for eliminating the threat: capping with pavement and putting it in new bridge footings, instead of trucking it away.

Removing the dirt could cost an extra $20 million, the new report estimates.

Others have worried about losing their homes or businesses. All who might be affected were individually contacted, “so they’ve known for quite some time,” said public relations consultant Kendall Flint.

It’s nearly impossible, however, to pinpoint dozens of those properties in the new report. Customers of Jack in the Box, Starbucks or Chevron on Kansas, for example, can’t tell whether they might be in the new road’s path.

Maps with such information are found in engineer drawings on Pages 561, 562 and 563 of the 840-page document, but the last page – reflecting businesses on the freeway’s east end, near Highway 99 – can’t be read, even when magnified on a computer screen. The others are barely legible and contain assessment parcel numbers, not addresses or names of businesses.

It appears that several Kansas companies, including Quality Inn, Guayabitos Restaurant, the Sandwich Shop and Gonzalez Furniture, would be relocated and their buildings razed, as would other businesses, 25 houses and two duplexes. Five mobile homes would have to go, too.

Thirty more homeowners and at least two dozen additional business owners would lose part of their land to the freeway, although their buildings would be spared.

Officials intend to add a legible map, Flint said Friday.

The new freeway would cross over Highway 99, connecting with Needham Street on the east, and would dip under Carpenter Road and Rosemore Avenue. How the freeway might connect with Highway 99 has yet to be decided, although options are detailed in the study; that decision will determine the fate of some Kansas businesses.

Also unknown is whether the bypass at first would feature just two lanes at a cost of $82 million, with another pair following a decade or so after. Buoyed by approval in November of a transportation tax – with an anticipated influx of new road money – leaders might opt to build all four lanes at once for about $214 million, said Modesto Councilman Bill Zoslocki.

Jokes about government forever planning a road are common, but this effort is serious, leaders say.

“Some of our board members were children when this started,” said Park, whose agency is composed of elected leaders from Stanislaus County and its nine cities. This year’s StanCOG chairman is Zoslocki, who said, “This has been 50 years in the making. If we’re going to do it, we probably should do it.”

Actually, the California Department of Transportation 60 years ago adopted a vision for replacing this stretch of Highway 132, now doubling as Maze Boulevard, with a new roadway free of stops running just south of Kansas until dipping south to join Maze at Dakota Avenue.

The state started buying property along Kansas in 1958 and dumped there 160,000 cubic yards of dirt scooped from nearby ponds at the former FMC chemical plant, which processed barium. The dirt, now covering a combined 12 1/2 acres of Caltrans’ 79 linear acres, could be used for a raised freeway, engineers said, and the plan remains in place today.

But tests in 2004 and 2006 showed the soil was contaminated with heavy metals, raising fear among neighbors and prompting protective fencing to keep people away. Hundreds more samples showed concentrations too low for people to worry about organ damage or cancer, and scientists said the metals won’t seep into groundwater, which also has been regularly tested in eight monitoring wells.

The new study includes a detailed plan for containing the tainted dirt.

Other points of interest in the report:

▪ Although Highway 132 colloquially has been called “blood alley” for its history of crashes, no traffic deaths occurred during a three-year study period, from 2012 through 2014.

▪ In that period, most crashes on the existing highway – or Maze – were broadside (34 percent) or rear-end (32 percent) collisions, both associated with relatively high traffic volumes and speeds, and lots of driveways to homes, businesses, schools and churches. That stretch has more than 60 private driveways, and 12 intersections with no signals.

▪ Skimming strips of land from dozens of parcels, the expressway would consume a combined 65 acres of farmland and another 127 linear acres from homes and businesses.

▪ Minorities and low-income people are more concentrated in neighborhoods affected by the bypass than elsewhere. But they will enjoy the same benefits of smoother driving as everyone else, the study says.

▪ People forced to move from homes and businesses will negotiate with government buyers who must pay fair market value. The government sometimes seizes land using eminent domain powers, with disputes resolved in court.

▪ By 2048, motorists will save a combined 640 hours of driving time each day by taking the bypass.

Officials initially expected to reveal the draft environmental study in fall 2013, but a series of delays kept it under wraps until now.

The Feb. 22 open house will have a drop-in-and-chat format, where people can view information posters and maps. They can ask questions of representatives from various agencies, including Modesto, the county, StanCOG and Caltrans, as well as state environmental units.

Before and after, people can see the environmental impact report and associated studies at StanCOG’s third-floor office, 1111 I St., or in the public library at 1500 I St., both in downtown Modesto, or online at www.stancog.org/pdf/SR_132_Draft_EIR_EA_20161228.pdf.

Comments can be offered at the open-house meeting, emailed to philip.vallejo@dot.ca.gov, or sent to Caltrans at 855 M St., Suite 200, Fresno, 93721.

“Do you believe the project’s potential impacts have been adequately addressed by the draft environmental document?” reads a public notice, asking for feedback by March 3.

“We’re making sure it’s totally vetted,” Flint said.

“If people know what’s going on, they tend to get engaged and there is a better chance of getting what everyone wants,” Zoslocki said. “Transparency is always good.”

Some people at StanCOG’s Thursday meeting asked for more time to review and comment, Zoslocki said, but 45 days meets Caltrans’ standard.

The state will produce a final version of the report after reviewing all comments.

This story was originally published January 28, 2017 at 7:01 PM.