Athens County officials have decided to install video cameras to document road damages after the Athens County Engineer’s Office noted several slight damages to roads from heavy trucks hauling fracking waste.
The slight smash damages — called vertical deflections — were first detected about a month ago at the Ladd Ridge Road injection site, which had two crossroad drainage pipes with the dips, said Athens County Engineer Archie Stanley.
“We are monitoring these two pipes carefully and are in communication with the haulers attempting to have the pipes replaced with stronger versions,” Stanley said.
The video cameras will be used as a method of documenting the road conditions, specifically on the roads experiencing an increase in hauling, which typically comes from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, Stanley said.
“Athens County is considering acquiring weigh scales for enforcement by the sheriff’s office,” Stanley said. “(The depletions) are not unsafe, but any deflection must be closely monitored.”
The current damages inflicted on the roads have not been severe, said Al Blazevicius, chair of the Strategic Advisory Committee on Hydraulic Fracturing.
“We are trying to negotiate to try and fix the damages on the roads,” Blazevicius said. “(The damages) are typically more on the nuisance level right now, but they are deteriorating the roads.”
The roads are gradually becoming more damaged so county officials should look at the roads now to try to fix the problem before it becomes more severe and more expensive, Blazevicius said.
The cost of the road damages has not yet been determined, Stanley said.
“It’s hard to say how expensive (the damages) are, but it really depends on the type of road,” Blazevicius said. “If it’s an asphalt road, it’ll be pretty expensive; if it’s a gravel road, it won’t be nearly as expensive.”
One possible solution to prevent damaging roads would be to employ a weight limit on the heavy trucks hauling fracking material, said Athens County Commissioner Larry Payne.
“A weight limit would be one way to enforce the issue, but it would require weighing the heavy trucks and the waste in them,” Payne said. “That would be up to the county engineer, though.”
Payne said that the Ladd Ridge Road injection well site is the only instance of road damage as a result of fracking waste.
“We’ve seen regular road damage needing maintenance in the county before, but we haven’t seen anything like this,” Payne said.
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