The Manteca City Council is expected to call for bids for the $2.3 million landscaping project. It stretches from Austin Road to French Camp Road on the Highway 99 corridor and from Highway 99 to Interstate 5 along the 120 Bypass corridors.

It will involve over 5,400 trees, an additional 1,700 trees, 3,900 shrubs, and 28,700 cubic yards of mulch and 500,000 square feet of hydro seed for grass as well as irrigation systems to support the plantings. The project also includes planting of vines along sound walls in a bid to soften the look and reduce the need for graffiti abatement.

All of that is in addition to the $1.4 million bid already awarded to landscape the interchanges on Highway 99 at the 120 Bypass as well as Yosemite Avenue. Actual work on the landscaping parts of those two interchanges will be starting within the month so plantings are tied to cooler weather.

Weatherford lauded the collaborative effort between the city staff, Caltrans and the San Joaquin Council of Governments to obtain the federal stimulus money set aside in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that could only be used for freeway landscaping.

To ensure there would be no impact on the general fund or the city, the bids include the requirement that the contractor irrigate the trees and other plantings for three years. That is enough time to assure that they can be established.

The city, meanwhile, is moving forward with efforts to connect purple pipe to utilize treated wastewater to provide irrigation in future years.

The purple pipe would only have to be extended a few more feet to connect with the freeway irrigation system.

At the same time mulch will be placed in such a manner to serve as a fire break to slow down any fires to allowing firefighters a chance to knock down grass fires hopefully in time before they can damage trees. Designing fire breaks coupled with the fact mature woodlands would minimize the growth of weeds plus block winds could ultimately mean that fires which are a routine occurrence on all quadrants of the interchange during the dry season will be substantially reduced. Altogether, Manteca is on target to receive at least $10 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.The money flowing to Manteca as part of President Obama?EUR??,,????'?????<