Ask the News

Why isn’t North Kilgore paved in Portales?

What is the pipeline started at East Seventh Street east of Norris in Clovis?

What are the goal post structures on that project?

The Kilgore Road Improvement Project is awaiting action by a corporation.

“We are waiting on Century Link to move their lines before we can start. Gas company already moved theirs,” Portales City Manager Sarah Austin wrote in a text Wednesday.

The Kilgore Road project began in July 2022.

“Kilgore Road has needed improvement for quite some time,” Austin said when interviewed last year.

“With the road being a complete redo, this will be a new road that has no potholes and can withstand the amount of traffic as well as the weight of traffic that travels it. It will be a much safer road to travel,” Austin said.

Clovis’ Seventh Street pipeline project belongs to New Mexico Gas Company.

Manager of Communications Tim Korte outlined details of that project in an email:

• Starting in July of this year, we began work to install a new 8-inch steel pipeline.
• The work is taking place along Seventh Street in Clovis, which becomes Curry Road 10, for an 8-mile stretch to the state line at Texico.
• This is an $8.9 million project to replace and modernize a 1930s-era pipeline.
• The project is expected to be completed in mid-November.
• The new pipeline will enhance reliability for customers and expand capacity because technological improvements will allow the pipeline to be operated at a higher pressure compared with the 1930s pipeline, allowing for more natural gas to be supplied.
• The new pipeline also will be compliant with current federal regulations, boosting safety for our customers.

As for the “goalpost” structures NM Gas Eastern New Mexico Operations Manager Dustin Siliceo said, “That’s their nickname, goalposts.”

Siliceo said the structures are in the vicinity of overhead lines.

“They keep everybody aware of what’s overhead, a visual cue.  Keeps safety on everyone’s mind,” Siliceo said.

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