Rains Delay Completion of Freeway Connector : Moorpark: The project will link two highways at the east end of town. The cost of the work will increase.

California Department of Transportation officials on Wednesday said that the opening of the Simi Valley-Moorpark freeway connector will be postponed until at least September, a five-month delay caused by persistent rains and other troubles.

The difficulties have pushed the project’s original budget of $33 million to an estimated $36 million or $37 million, said Gary Ethier, project manager for Caltrans.

The project will link California 118 to California 23 at the east end of Moorpark.

“We’re in a spot right now where we’ve been ready to pave for at least a week or two weeks and every time we get ready to do it, Mother Nature moves in,” Ethier said Wednesday.

At least two months of the delay were attributed to the discovery of a former underground trash dump near the construction site in the fall of 1991. The buried waste, which officials said posed no immediate problem, was removed because of concerns over high concentrations of lead.

The connector measures 2.2 miles and includes two 100-foot-high bridges, each more than 1,400 feet long. Simi Valley-based C. A. Rasmussen is under contract to build the roads while San Francisco-based C. C. Myers is constructing the bridges.

“Every day it rains is one day you can’t work,” said Lew DeLucia, project manager for C. A. Rasmussen. “Since the beginning of December, we’ve probably lost the better part of a month. You’ve got so much water out there you can’t go out and do the work.”

January has been an almost total washout, DeLucia said. Paving was scheduled to begin again Friday, Ethier said.

Local officials on Wednesday expressed dismay at the construction delays.

“Five additional months is disastrous,” said Moorpark Mayor Paul Lawrason. “I’m disappointed to say the least. . . . It’s been something we’ve looked forward to with great anticipation.”

Lawrason said the construction has, at times, clogged traffic through the city. “We’ve been absolutely affected by it,” he said.

Mary Travis, a program manager with Ventura County Transportation Commission, said the connector is badly needed to relieve Moorpark of the traffic between the two freeways.

The connector has been second on the commission’s list of most-needed highway projects for years, ranked only behind the widening of California 126 between Fillmore and the Los Angeles County-Ventura County line.

“Folks in Moorpark have had to live with a lot of traffic going through their community for a lot of years and as soon as we can get that open we will be very happy,” Travis said. Simi Valley Councilman Bill Davis said he expected the delays, given the rainy weather, and thought that residents could do without the connector for a few more months.

The project is important to Simi Valley, Davis said, because it will relieve traffic congestion on Olsen and Madera roads, which now offer a well-traveled link between the freeways.

“It’ll take off the wear and tear on the city streets that we’re paying for,” he said.