Residents of the Genesee Fire Protection District voted in May 2025 to approve the construction of the Emergency Accss Route. Since that time, the GFPD Board of Directors has been diligently working towards constructing this road.

GFPD worked with legal counsel, bond counsel, bond underwriters, and others and prepared and published a Request for Proposal soliciting construction bids for the road. In response to this RFP, GFPD received final bids from four vendors and GFPD then assembled an independent committee to evaluate and score the technical proposals.

Based on the recommendation of the committee, GFPD entered into an agreement with its top-ranked construction vendor and conducted a Pre-Construction Conference on August 11 with the vendor, addressing schedule, Quality Control/Assurance, additional Value Engineering options, safety, and community concerns, including impacts on traffic, dust, and noise. The vendor started  mobilization activities on Tuesday, August 12.

In addition, GFPD, together with underwriters and bond counsel, has issued and sold the bonds necessary to fund the project and has now completed the closing for the bond transactions as of July 31, 2025.

Construction on the road started in August and the construction vendor has made significant progress already as shown below:

Construction crews are installing the northern box culverts (29 sections) that cross the stream coming down the valley from Reservoir #1. There is another box culvert at the crossing farther south (21 sections). Each section is heavily reinforced and is 4’ high by 6’ wide by 7’4” long and weighs over 21,000 pounds. The culvert follows the stream alignment so there will be a cast-in-place concrete elbow at the bend, and cast-in-place wingwalls/aprons at the ends.

Some of the recent work has concentrated on placing and backfilling the precast box culverts for the stream crossings, expansion of the initial bench (the “pioneer road” – rough grading and about ½ width of the final alignment to allow work on the steep, rocky slopes), and widening segments to final width and grade. The crew recently completed the pioneer road running full the length of the EAR. Excavation continues on the sections east and west of the northern box culvert. The vendor has made good progress in rock excavation up until now, but they’ve hit some sections of hard granite that their impact hammers cannot break. They called in a blasting company that inspected the site on Wednesday, January 28 and have a plan to fragment these hard rock knobs, scheduled for the week of February 2. This will not be a big quarry blast with rock flying up. These will be small charges in 3 1/4” diameter holes, 8 feet deep with 2-3 feet of slurry explosive in the bottom, and 6-5’ of sand stemming on top to keep the energy in the rock – just enough explosive to fragment the rock so that excavators can handle it. Blasts will be done in daylight, scheduled for mid-afternoon. Monitors will be placed monitors out to measure vibration, but it’s unlikely that Bitterroot and Daisy Lane residents will either hear or feel the blasts.

Genesee Fire Protection District has recently acquired a pair of gates that total 20’ wide at an excellent price in a recent auction. These gates will replace the temporary chain at the southern end of the EAR near Highway 74.

The vendor is hydroseeding the earth slopes to stabilize them. The revegetation of these slopes will emerge next spring. Chipping of trees and slash is complete at the Solitude end, and these materials will be thinly spread for slope stabilization in accordance with specifications provided by the Foundation’s Open Space Manager and Fire District.

Genesee Fire Protection District is in negotiations with Xcel Energy for cost sharing of construction of pads and use of the EAR needed for the replacement of Xcel’s 1950’s wooden transmission line poles (location noted on the drawing as Xcel poles #9794-25)

EAR construction continues to be a daily activity, proceeding both from the north end near the Solitude tennis/pickleball courts and the south end from Highway 74. Trucks and equipment will be going through the neighborhood at times. Please be alert as you drive in and out of the neighborhood. Based on the current progress, GFPD expects to have the project completed in May 2026.