Tehama County road crews maintain hundreds of miles of paved roads, unpaved gravel shoulders, drainage ditches, gutters and culverts.
Pavement maintenance includes surface treatments, crack sealing, and pothole patching.
Roadside maintenance activities include snowplowing, mowing, brush removal, culvert and ditch maintenance, and litter clean up. Such activities are necessary to eliminate potential hazards from the traveled way, maintain adequate visibility, support the road structure and allow storm water to readily exit the roadway.
In addition, special crews are responsible for bridge maintenance, pavement management, and sign maintenance.
Tehama County Public Works Maintenance District Map
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Bridge Maintenance
Tehama County Public Works is responsible for maintaining nearly 700 bridges of various types and sizes. Caltrans (California Department of Transportation) inspects approximately 300 of these bridges.
The remaining bridges are inspected by County crews. Based on the information provided in the inspection reports, the Road Maintenance Department performs the necessary maintenance such as repairing concrete and replacing old or damaged timbers and bridge railing.
Major repairs are designed by the Engineering Department and constructed by contract.
Pavement Management
Pavement management staff inspect roads every three years and utilize a computerized Pavement Management System (PMS) to assists the Public Works staff in evaluating, tracking, and ranking pavement conditions based on field inspections. The PMS also helps the road crews prioritize which roads receive a surface treatment.
Weathering and excessive traffic loads cause distress to the asphalt pavement. Excessive distress will lead to cracking, potholes and complete deterioration of the pavement. The most common distresses found during inspections include: potholes, cracking, alligator cracking and rutting. The amount of distress in the sample area determines the pavement condition index (PCI). Our goal is to maintain 50% of our road system at a fair or better condition.
Maintenance activities to minimize these problems and extend the pavement service life include: crack sealing, pothole patching and surface treatments such as overlays, chip seals and slurry seals. Roads that need to be overlaid, chip sealed, or slurry sealed are dependent upon the PMS ranking, traffic volumes, and available funding.
Road Maintenance
Tehama County road crews maintain hundreds of miles of paved roads, unpaved gravel shoulders, drainage ditches, gutters and culverts. Roadside maintenance activities include snowplowing, mowing, brush removal, culvert and ditch maintenance, and litter clean up.
Pavement maintenance includes surface treatments, crack sealing, and pothole patching. Such activities are necessary to eliminate potential hazards from the traveled way, maintain adequate visibility, support the road structure and allow storm water to readily exit the roadway.
Surface Treatments
Applying a surface treatment is the most extensive of the pavement maintenance operations. Such treatments include, placing an asphalt overlay, chip seal, or slurry seal. County crews perform some small asphalt overlays, chip seals and slurry seals and the larger projects are performed by contract.
Crack Sealing
Crack sealing is one of the most economical pavement maintenance operations for minimizing pavement distress. Pavement cracks allow moisture to seep into the underlying base material. Crack sealing helps to prevent these problems by prohibiting surface water from seeping into the base material beneath the pavement.
Pothole Patching
In the winter months, the pavement is cooler and less flexible, which makes is more susceptible to cracking. Add rain and snow, and this is why there seems to be more problems with potholes in the winter. However, potholes are a year round problem. County maintenance crews repair potholes on a continual basis.
Vegetation Control
Vegetation control consists of mowing and brush cutting. When the fire danger is low, County crews can perform roadside mowing. Brush cutting and tree removal involves the removal of larger vegetation such as bushes, limbs and small trees that obstruct the traveled way or present a potential safety hazard.
Litter Removal
Litter and debris often accumulates within the County right-of-way. Large accumulations can constitute health or safety hazards.
These areas are cleaned by Road Maintenance Crews.
Drainage Maintenance
Drainage maintenance includes such work as necessary to maintain proper drainage adjacent to the roadway and through culverts. This work includes the cleaning and shaping of roadside ditches in conjunction with blading roadside shoulders, cleaning, repairing and replacing culverts.
Snow Plowing
It is the intent of the Tehama County Public Works Department to provide the most effective snow removal service possible for the residents of Mineral. Public Works Crews will make every effort to keep the roads clean and open for use; realizing that the snow removal personnel have a 60-mile commute from Gerber to Mineral. It is important to note that only county roads and facilities are plowed. We do not offer plowing on private roads, state highways or on roads that are not maintained during the winter.
Important Information:
- Caltrans removes snow on Highway 36. Call Caltrans at 1-800-427-7623.
- County employees are not permitted to plow private roads, non-county roads or parking entrances.
- Office staff is not able to determine when a particular road is going to be plowed.
What You Can Do?
- Please be courteous to our drivers. Driving a plow is difficult and requires a lot of skill and concentration. A driver never intentionally moves snow to block a driveway. They are simply trying to help as many people as they can as fast as they can
- Plan ahead, be prepared, and don’t travel if you don’t have to. It is not uncommon for a rural County Road to become impassable for several days during major storm events. If you do not have more than one route to get to and from your residence, you should store enough provisions including fuel for a generator if you have one to last 7 days.
What You Should Avoid?
- Do not park vehicles or place trash cans on roadways or along the edge of roadways. Vehicles blocking snow removal operations may be towed away at the owner’s expense. Vehicles and trash cans should be a minimum of 5 feet off the roadway on your property. Do not clear your driveway until after your road has been plowed. This will reduce the amount of snow that the plow leaves as it passes your driveway.
- Do not shovel or put snow from driveways in the roadway, as this creates a hazard for other drivers, a liability for you, and is illegal.
- Snow plows make frequent stops and backup maneuvers. Do not drive your car up behind a snow plow as the driver may be unable to see you and inadvertently back into your car. If you are behind a plow that stops, stop your vehicle in such a way that your car looks into the driver’s outside rearview mirror and please give them extra room.
I live on White Fir Ln. in Mineral. It has been snowing hard for the last two days, but my street has not been plowed. Did we get missed?
No, please give the crew 24 hours after the snow stops before calling the office. We don’t know when it will be plowed, but we can take a report and make the drivers aware it might have been missed.
I have a dentist appointment in the morning, could you please have my road plowed so I can leave home at 9 am?
Roads will be plowed in the order that affords the greatest benefit for the most residents. This means that the crew follows a map of streets in specific order. We may plow your residential street if you have a legitimate emergency (threat to life, health or property). Otherwise, please be flexible in regard to your appointments.
I am expecting guests. Would it be all right if they parked on the street just this once?
Parking is not permitted on the County Road right-of-way during snow removal operations. If you do not have adequate on-site parking that is well out of the way of snow clearing activities, consider carpooling or shuttling your guests in from a public parking lot. Vehicles left on the road will be towed at the owner’s expense.
Traffic Signs & Safety
Traffic signs provide regulations, guidance and information for the road user. The operations and maintenance crew maintain approximately 8,000 signs. The Department operates a sign shop on an as-needed basis for emergencies and fabricating non-standard signs.
Tehama County utilizes a Field Retroreflectometer to check the reflectivity of each sign on an annual basis. A traffic sign will last 5 to 7 years before it fades and requires replacement. Other reasons for sign replacement include vandalism, accidents and theft. Most of the standard signs are recycled.
Material Deposit Request
Our crews are often working on roads and other areas performing tree trimming, digging out areas that may have a blockage, and clearing gutters of overgrowth of brush, etc.
Residents who live nearby these work areas can request the raw chips from tree trimming, road construction or road maintenance materials or gutter material be dropped off on their property at no charge for their use.
Please fill out the form and send it via our website or drop it off at the Public Works office at 9380 San Benito Ave. in Gerber. It must be signed by the Director before material can be received. These materials will be delivered in their raw condition with no guarantee that other non-organic materials will not be present.
For more information call the Department at 530-385-1462.