Highway 111 closure causes frustration for community

NILAND — The closure of California Highway 111 near here for about two weeks is affecting local businesses and recreational locations in the area, including portions of the Salton Sea.

The closure began Sept. 27 about 5 miles northwest of town at Davis and Gillespie roads. Workers are attempting to mitigate the encroachment of a mud-pot geyser on the highway.

The popular Ski Inn restaurant in Niland has seen its business drop since the highway closed.

Ski Inn owner Sonia Herbert said even some her employees had to be creative in finding ways to get to work.

“Some of us are going through the back roads to go around the geyser and highway 111 to get to work,” she said.

She said she realized her restaurant’s location and proximity to the mud-pot, which is 320 feet wide and 70 feet deep, was going to result in lost business when the highway closed.

“Business has been really slow,” Herbert said, “There’s not much traffic coming in.”

She said there is not much the restaurant can do but wait for the highway to reopen, which she has been told will be Oct. 11.

Herbert said Caltrans did tell them before the highway closed what it was going to do.

“There’s not much else we can do,” she said.

Linda Beal, a local historian and member of the now-closed Salton Sea Museum, said she wishes more information was released before the closure.

“I don’t feel we got enough information on the road to really know,” she said. “I would like to have more information for the people who call me.”

When people would call her to ask where they should visit on their vacations, she has to take into account the highway closure.

“People call me to ask how to get certain places,” she said.

She said anyone wishing to drive around the entire Salton Sea would find it impossible right now.

“As the weather gets cooler, we do like to go down to the sea,” Beal said.

She said the detour to CA-78, will add, depending on the amount of traffic, about an hour of travel time from locations like El Centro.

Beal said some people upon hearing about the closures have decided to visit at a later time.

There is no access through SR-111 at the closure points as crews are installing drainage underneath the roadway. Local traffic can access SR-111 up to the closure points near Davis and Gillespie roads.

Because this is a stretch of highway without easily accessible parallel roads, Caltrans is rerouting traffic from the north and south of SR-111 to the west side of the Salton Sea along State Route 86.

According to Caltrans, highway message signs have been posted to alert motorists of the work and detour.