Carlsbad, Eddy County, New Mexico Begins Construction Project of Bridge on Main Roadway for Oil and Gas Industry
Yesterday, the New Mexico Department of Transportation announced a several months long repair job of a bridge on Greene Street in Carlsbad, Eddy County, New Mexico. Deterioration of cement on the bridge’s pier cab reached the point to render the bridge a major hazard to drivers. The bridge has been closed since early August and the construction repair project is slated to start October 1, 2022.
The bridge is on Greene street which is the local street name for U.S. Highway 62/180 which is a major highway connecting Carlsbad with communities in Lea County like Hobbs, New Mexico as well as West Texas counties of Gaines County. Greene Street in Carlsbad, Eddy County, New Mexico or U.S. Highway 62/180 are major roads for the oil and gas industry, the potash industry mines of Mosaic and Intrepid, and also for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) nuclear repository near Carlsbad. In particular, Highway 62/180 connects the heavy oil and gas producing counties of Eddy County and Lea County in New Mexico that form part of the Permian and Delaware Basin. In addition Highway 62/180 connects up with US Highway 285 (also known as the “Death Highway”) which is also a major highway for the oil and gas industry and connects the Southeast New Mexico oilfields with the oilfields in West Texas in Winkler, Reeves, and Pecos counties.
NMDOT estimates that over 16,000 vehicles travel over the bridge, including not only regular passenger vehicles but oil field vehicles like frac sand trucks, water hauling trucks, and other tractor-trailers or 18 wheelers. The DOT and local Carlsbad, New Mexico and Eddy County officials acknowledge that the several months long bridge repair construction project will likely create increased congestion of traffic and potential delays.
As a result, this construction project could lead to increased motor vehicle crashes that result in personal injuries or fatalities/wrongful deaths of drivers, passengers, or pedestrians to a street and highway that is already notorious for increased collisions and crashes due to heavy oilfield and oil and gas industry traffic. Please take additional caution and slow down when driving through these areas.
However, if you or someone you know is hurt or killed due to increased traffic congestion resulting from construction projects or from increased dangerous oilfield vehicle traffic, you may have a claim for personal injuries, including physical injury claims as well as mental health claims for mental or emotional distress. To maximize the potential damages for physical, mental, or emotional pain and suffering as well as lost wages is to contact a local experienced law firm like Stout & Stout Lawyers. Stout & Stout Lawyers has been a part of these communities for over 70 years and has decades of experience fighting for victims of motor vehicle crashes, trucking accidents, head on collisions, and all host of other personal injury lawyer and wrongful death lawyer type claims. Contact Stout & Stout Lawyers today for your free consultation!