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Westlock County roads "worse than ever"

Residents say conditions are dangerous on some county gravel roads

The state of the roads in Westlock County is nothing new to residents, but this year they’re saying it’s the worst they’ve ever been.

“I’ve been on logging roads that are better than that,” said Division 1 resident Pat Jones.

He has an acreage on Township Road 582, just a road up from Sturgeon County. On Friday, after two days of rain, Jones reached out to the county about the poor condition of his road.

“I’m in a truck, an old truck, in four-wheel drive, in second gear, and it’s all I can do to get through there,” he said.

TWP 582_2Pat Jones took the News for a drive on Township Road 582 between Highways 44 and 2, where he has his acreage. In this particular section, he said he went no faster than 20 km/h. It’s the mud that appeared to stir the car. Andreea Resmerita/Westlock News

It took a call to the Coun. Victor Julyan, Jones said, to get a positive response from county administration. The first one, he and his wife described was dismissive, although they’re willing to acknowledge the person they spoke to was having a bad day.

A week prior to Jones’ call, Nicolas Brown reached out to the News with some pictures of the same road.

“I know every year there’s complaints about county road conditions, or that the county doesn’t do any roadwork, etc. But especially this year the conditions are getting quite dangerous. … Some of them even have branches and small logs coming up through the road surface,” wrote Brown.

“These roads should be designed to handle farm equipment during the spring – yet every spring they look more and more unsafe.”

County roads_3Township Road 582 between Highways 44 and 2 around May 14, just before Westlock County spread gravel on portions of the road. Supplied.

His family farms in the area, and Brown frequently drives there from the Town of Westlock.

For Jones, if the roads are being used by farmers with heavy equipment, “you’ve got to have the infrastructure to support that type of traffic, and it just isn’t there.”

He doesn’t claim to be an expert on road construction, but he does have experience in the trade.

“I used to run a grader for a few years in the military, that was my trade, building roads,” he said.

It’s ratepayers’ opinion that the only way to fix the roads that are in a similar state is to dig them up and redo those portions where re-gravelling no longer works.

“When they built the roads, they laid the trees down and then just filled them, and then they dumped gravel on them. That’s a temporary road that we would build in the field but it would never last. … Between Range Road 260 and Highway 2, there’s logs sticking up the road,” explained Jones.

“That’s my biggest problem, if they start destroying vehicles, is the county willing to pay for all of that?”

And it’s not a problem that’s only for residents in the south part of the county.

Byron Brandl runs a cattle operation near Jarvie. On May 22, he was pulling a trailer with his truck and got stuck in the mud on Range Road 20.

In a post on Facebook that got 200 people riled up about the roads, he wrote: “I am fed up. Every year we get excuses. It’s a bad spring. It’s the frost coming out. It’s the heavy traffic. It’s the rain we had the last couple days.

“I’ve lived here for 27 years and it’s been the same. 18 years ago we got stuck a half mile from this spot. I drive gravel roads all over the province in the spring delivering bulls every year and I never encounter anything close to what I do in Westlock County.”

His frustration has him contemplating moving out of the county entirely: “We just might be fed up enough here.”

Brandl stuckByron Brandl got stuck May 22, when he was pulling a trailer on Range Road 20 west of Jarvie. The cattle farmer is frustrated enough with the situation that he’s contemplating leaving Westlock County. Supplied.

It’s not unusual either to help other people get out who get stuck on the roads nearby, Brandl told the News.

Interim CAO Rick McDonald says that spring is a difficult time for county infrastructure.

“Roads that see increased frequency and weight of heavy traffic become damaged and often require extensive repair. TWP 582 will receive repair by grading and if required, more gravel to bring it into a more useable condition,” he wrote in a May 22 e-mail.

This year, 666 km of roads will receive some form of repair, said McDonald: gravelling on 491 km of road, gravel patches for 127 km, and 48 km are slated for rehabilitation (shoulder pulling and gravelling).

In the winter, 98 km were graveled or gravel-patched.

As for when the repairs will start: “Once the road bans are removed and the roads become dry enough the county will restart it’s repairs, gravelling program, and the normal road grading program will continue.”

Andreea Resmerita, TownandCountryToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @andreea_res

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