I was up in the Western panhandle of West Virginia last week. I traveled West Virginia State Route 67 from Bethany to the Pennsylvania state line where it turns into PA SR-331. I noticed the road pavement now appears to be ground up into gravel, where it has not been that way over the previous 5 years I have been there. Does anyone know what's going on with this? One thing I could think of was to discourage frackers, but I really doubt this is the case. Maybe it's just a cost cutting road maintenance technique on a low traffic road?
Why would the state want to discourage frackers if they bring in $$$?
The state of WV most certainly does NOT discourage fracking, and I cannot imagine downgrading a road for any reason (this one is way on the other side the state from me).
There has been an issue (remember that all WV roads are really state routes, there are no county road agencies) where frackers have come in to a very local road and just over-burdened it with heavy equipment in a short period of time such that it needs repairs on a schedule way out of whack with the planning cycle. This was dealt with by reasonable people from both the fracking job creators and the DOT side working together to use reason and common sense.
Quite possibly. It was incredibly rough from what I recall several years ago, and this was before the fracking industry moved in. They are building some fracking facility (unsure on what it is, but it's quite large) by the state line. The road is very narrow in many areas and has very little traffic, so having it revert to gravel isn't that surprising.
With the cost of gravel road maintenance being considerably cheaper, especially for low volumes like SR 67, I can see this being done more elsewhere. It's already being done in many states, especially on a township and county level.
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Looking at http://www.theintelligencer.net/news/community/2011/07/chesapeake-to-spend-millions-fixing-roads/, it looks like Chesapeake was committed to repairing SR 67. Considering they destroyed a waterfall (literally, removed it) on a sensitive waterway, I can't see them following through with this, especially with their financial outlook at the moment.
Interesting article. It doesn't seem like much has been done to WV 67 until this year, when it was reverted to gravel. It also has a one lane grated bridge between Bethany and the state line.
WV 67 was chip-seal east of Bethany. It's a hard surface but is not designed for repeated heavy loads. I'm not surprised to hear it's broken down into gravel.
When gas companies want to use a route, they work with WVDOH to designate a travel route and sign a maintenance agreement. They have to post a bond that should theoretically cover returning the road to its original condition when it's complete. DOH takes video of the route to serve as a reference.
The problem with this system is that much of the time, the road gets destroyed while fracking is in progress. This sounds like what happened with WV 67. I'd prefer seeing West Virginia move to a system where the contractor must upgrade the road to handle their traffic before they can begin to use it. The public should not have to suffer poor road conditions for the benefit of the fracking industry.
I guess it could be chip seal now, but the gravel just seemed to be way too thick for it to be chip seal.
Quote from: Bitmapped on August 09, 2016, 09:37:41 AM
When gas companies want to use a route, they work with WVDOH to designate a travel route and sign a maintenance agreement. They have to post a bond that should theoretically cover returning the road to its original condition when it's complete. DOH takes video of the route to serve as a reference.
Kentucky does something similar for coal haul routes not currently on the system.