High Plains Daily Leader and Southwest Daily Times
Wednesday, 19 January 2011 12:16
By ROBERT PIERCE
At its Jan. 3 meeting, the Seward County Commission was approached by landowners expressing concerns about high truck traffic to the Arkalon ethanol plant and the resulting dust levels on a road in the eastern part of the county.
Road and bridge supervisor Tony Herrman, along with other staff, was instructed to bring back additional information regarding the number of landowners along the four miles of Road O and also running one-half mile east and west, as well as the square footage amounts to be assessed per property owner.
Herrman provided commissioners with those numbers at Tuesday’s meeting, and the board would eventually approve a plan to assist with the high dust levels on the road.
Herrman said he had assistance on the plan from the county’s geographical information system and planning and zoning departments, as well as administrator Mary Bloomer.
Before detailing the plan, the road and bridge department head said the county has dust issues on many of its roads that will likely never be solved.
“I do think, however, that if the commission makes a decision not to pave this road, I think there’s some things we can try in the spring time and possibly, hopefully, get some help from Mother Nature,” he said.
Herrman said Seward County has had less than half an inch of moisture since September making it difficult to maintain, blade and gravel roads. He said the best solution for now for Road O was to tear it up and reconstruct the first mile, which would be done by experimenting with some material.
“We’re always experimenting with different techniques and things that we learn and share with other counties, and it’s something that we can try,” he said. “We’ll spend some money doing it, but we can budget that or have that as part of my road improvement for 2011 and try to take that in as a top priority to try to improve that first stretch of road.” FULL ARTICLE
Posted on
Wed, January 19, 2011
by John Cox