Township Road 635 and Range Road 20 is in severe need of an overhaul as a May 8 delegation to Westlock County council called it the worst road in the municipality.
Ratepayers Wendy Hood and Byron Brandl presented their concerns to councillors following the overland flooding that lead to closed roads and bridges, noting the road had been in disrepair for the 16 years they’ve lived in the area.
“It’s embarrassing to me as a taxpayer,” said Hood. “It’s like we are the country cousins to the north.”
Hood told councillors the road had been impassible on several occasions, but local farmers and the Pibroch community have patched up problems as they came up.
Coun. Fred Slobodian inquired as to why the issues with the road are not reported.
“I guarantee you these are not reported to you because of the country culture. People just like to take care of things themselves,” she responded. “When I spoke to my neighbours they said, ‘Good luck, we’ve been there three times already.’”
Coun. Dennis Primeau expressed his sympathy, noting the stretch was in severe need of rehab. He added the first step to fixing the problem was addressing the county’s ongoing overland drainage issues.
“This road was not built to a basic standard road,” he said. “It was pushed out to a gravel pit in the County of Barrhead.”
Part of the problem, says Hood, is the tiny road is used by gravel haulers, farmers from Neerlandia and campers who use the stretch to get to the Fort Assiniboine Sandhills.
However, the underlying problem was the lack of attention paid to the road, the lack of culverts to allow for drainage and the ditches along the road not being deep enough.
“Basic maintenance has been minimal at best,” she said.
“We recall only a few basic culvert repairs and one short ditch digging project since 2002. A search of internal records to 2007 confirms this. We need a plan. We need consistent graveling.”
“You need a lot more than gravel,” Slobodian replied.
“You need to tell us when the road is in need of work. Documentation is huge.”
Coun. Jared Stitsen echoed Slobodian, noting that the county can’t maintain a road if it doesn’t know there’s a problem and suggested residents use the county’s website to fill out a customer service requests. That way the county will know just how bad the situation is.
“You want to hear about it every time?” asked Hood.
“Absolutely,” said Slobodian.
Reeve Lou Hall thanked Hood and Brandl for bringing the issue to council’s attention and promised to personally drive the road to get scope of the problem.
Westlock County customer service request form can be found at https://www.westlockcounty.com/contact.
