Athabasca County council discussed how to address complaints of inaccessible back roads during their regular meeting June 12.
Councillors Travais Johnson, Larry Armfelt, Penny Stewart and Dennis Willcott all said they received complaints about some of the dirt roads within their respective wards, which suffered damage due to snow melt and recent rainy weather.
"We were dealt a bad card from Mother Nature for sure," Coun. Stewart said. "But that does not mean we have to let that card lie there. We either need to put in our resources to try and fix that, or take stranded residents out to a highway. We just can not let this fly. I have constituents sending me pictures of how bad this is, it's that serious."
Coun. Johnson echoed those words. The former fire chief said he actually went out and checked some of those roads himself.
"The situation is quite real," Johnson said. "Right now, you can not get an ambulance or fire truck out there, or even a regular 4X4 truck in some cases. Something needs to be done. Some residents can not get their vehicles out of their driveways right now."
Out in the Atmore area, Johnson mentioned that one person who has been going back and forth for medical treatment due to illness.
"We can not get an ambulance to him," he said. "We have to make one road in the area passable. Otherwise, it's not happening."
Johnson said another four mile stretch of road is not even useable due to it having lots of ruts in it.
"If there was a fire, I would not be able to get in there with my three-quarter tonne truck," he said.
Coun. Armfelt added he has been hearing some of the same problems from his constituents..
"We have to open up our purse strings to deal with this issue, even if we end up over-budget," Armfelt said. "I realize that the county's pocket is not big enough to deal with all of this right now, so we are going to have to look at the budget and find some more money to work on fixing some of these roads."
Armfelt also proposed using some private contractors to deal with this issue.
"We can not completely depend on county resources and machinery to deal with this issue," he said. "I have three private contractors in my district that could go out and fix some of these frost boils, which have become frost miles in some cases."
Stewart added while each situation is different, each road in dire need should be looked at and prioritized.
"If I had to prioritize, it would be Division 7, and then Division 6," Stewart said. "Because in Division 7, some school buses, emergency resources and other essential services can not get through at this moment. And if we need to peel back one road just to give people access, we really need to do that."
Coun. Dennis Willcott said that any possible solution will require more than just simply putting more gravel on the roads.
"If the roads are black dirt coming up, you can whack all the gravel you like, but it still will not fix the problem," Willcott said. "The only thing you can do with some of them, if they were not so bad, is you could put a mat over them until you could fix the road. But that will take a lot of matting on 10 kilometres."
Athabasca County manager Brian Maier said while the administration knows the roads are bad, this is one issue where the county just can not win.
"If there is a way, or something that we can do, we are all ears," Maier said. "I have got guys with 30-40 years of experience, and I trust in their judgement. We can look at one area in isolation and say that is a priority, but we can also find 10 spots that are in dire need and then, how can you possibly address that?"
Coun. Warren Griffin asked administration how much money they have in reserves to help out with emergency situations like this.
"Maybe we should be having a budget meeting so we could actually discuss road reconstruction or maintenance projects in budgetary terms," Griffin said. "And then we can start doing some long-term planning on our roads."
"The county's infrastructure department is under-budget right now, so there is lots of room for spending on this," said Travis Wierenga, the infrastructure services director, said. "I am not worried about the funds to fix things right now, but I think we need to have further discussions at the next public works committee meeting on what we can do about this."
A similar situation with damaged roads in Westlock County forced them to declare a State of Emergency April 23, and remained in place until April 30.
In a Westlock News article dated May 1, Reeve Lou Hall said county employees worked long hours to stay on top of the situation. Council at the time authorized administration to dip into their $381,759 emergency fund to help deal with this issue.
In Athabasca County, council agreed to discuss the issue further at their next public works committee meeting June 19.
