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Road nearly impassable with a car.
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Redman
Posted 5/1/2016 00:06 (#5274858 - in reply to #5274085)
Subject: RE:I will be the devils advocate


SW Saskatchewan
Having served on municipal council, I know how expensive it is to maintain roads. When times are tough on the farm the incentive is to listen to the rate payers and keep taxes reasonable because taxes never seem to go down--when the critical needs are met someone always has an idea how to use tax money so pressure is always upwards.

And I have seen how an adequate road can be totally ruined by inconsiderate fools who consciously overload or operate when the conditions are likely to ruin the road.

A few years ago we were in a natural gas play with a lot of fracking--now there is maybe a farm family on every 5000 acres on average so road use is quite low so when the companies come in with multiple wells per quarter section and 100 semi trips(some eight and nine axle) per hole there is a lot of wear and tear on the roads, especially at high speeds

And it doesn't have to be wet, gravel disappears under use and then the surface turns to powder and blows away-break down the road top and pounded out holes will appear that are difficult and expensive to repair. Add rain that saturates the road bed and trouble escalates.

And pity the person who is trying to negotiate these foxholes with a pickup or car.

Yes, there is a road that could be built that could stand that use but who can afford it on a local govt budget--it would have to be of primary highway quality.

We took an activist stand-we called in the oil companies and told them what we would stand for. Number one was load limits, no traffic during spring break-up or when the roads were wet. Speed limits were set at 60 kmph for heavy trucks on all roads, less once they started to deteriorate. Roads were specified that they could use-in other municipalities we had seen where they would destroy one road and then move to another and destroy it.We were also willing to close a road if its condition became too bad and made it clear it would stay closed unless the oil companies paid to fix it.

Wells are not big taxpayers but we had the ability to vary the mill rate for different classes of property so we drove the mill rate for wells to the max so they would carry their share of the load.

Today with gas prices as they are, they have all left town but we still have our roads.

We have never been troubled by intensive livestock operations but they cause similar problems. The county of Lethbridge has brought in a per head tax for livestock because of this and I think it is going to be $3.00/head. We will see if this flies.

There are ways to handle this problem-but sometimes it can't happen if your council wants to be Mr Nice Guy. Sometimes you need Clint Eastwood!

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