County considers rural road concerns

Addressing concerns with county roads in rural parts of Sweetwater County was one of the main topics of discussion during the July 2 County Commissioner meeting.

The commissioners voted to award a bid for a frost heaves project on County Road 1 near McKinnon and voted to vacate County Road 124 near Eden.

Both roads have been the subject of discussion for the past few months, with several commissioners making trips out to the affected areas to see the roads for themselves and learn more about the needs in the areas.

Fixing "frost heaves"

A working group was formed in order to address County Road 1, learning about the damage to the road and potential solutions for the future. For now, a project to repair frost-heave-like damage will move forward.

"We call it a frost heave, but it's not really a frost heave," Public Works Director Gene Legerski explained. "It's a fatty clay that has had water infiltration that has caused the road to swell, so it's creating bumps." 

At first the damage was thought to be from frost heaves because the road would rise in the winter and go back down in the summer, according to Legerski. Now, however, the road isn't settling back down again because of the trapped water under it.

The project will dig out 10 affected areas, fix them, and repave the road. The goal is to get the road repaired and open again before the start of school, Legerski said, which gives the contractor a short timeline. To help meet the goal, the county has borrowed an idea from the Wyoming Department of Transportation, implementing incentives and decentives, Legerski said. If the contractors finish early, they will be paid more. If they finish late, they will pay liquidated damages.

Another part of making the project easier will involve closing the road down each night. This will result in a better end product as workers will be able to access the damaged areas more directly, according to Legerski. It will also be more cost-effective than trying to keep the road open.

"If we had to do traffic control, [it] would probably add another half a million to three quarters of a million dollars to this project," Legerski explained. "So by closing the road and having some slight inconvenience, it's going to save the taxpayers and the county money."

When asked by Commissioner Robb Slaughter about the funding for the project, Legerski confirmed that he will use fuel tax money to pay for it, and added that he is putting off other projects in order to fund this one.

The commissioners voted unanimously to award the bid for the project to Killgore Companies LLC doing business as Lewis and Lewis Inc. in the amount of $1,234,375.

Ensuring access

Another county road that has generated a lot of discussion ever since February is County Road 124 Eden East 2nd North. The commissioners were approached with a petition from area residents to vacate the road. However, other residents spoke in opposition to the request. The road's close connection to two pieces of private land in the area influenced considerations and discussions of what vacating the road would mean. 

In addition to the original petition, which had 42 signatures, the commissioners also received 17 comments regarding the county road during the public comment period. Only three of the comments received were in opposition to the county vacating the road, while 14 were in favor. 

"One of the things that I want to make perfectly clear is this road hasn't been used since 1994," Legerski told the commissioners. He explained that a center pivot irrigation system was put over the road at the time, and that it hasn't been used since. 

"There are a couple of things that I'm pretty serious about. One is property rights and access, and then public access to public lands," Commissioner Taylor Jones said. 

One of the main questions brought up was whether vacating the road would cut off public access to public lands in the area. 

"I don't want to have that misconception out there that we don't have access," Legerski said. "We do." 

The public works director maintained that there are multiple other ways besides the county road, which is no longer in use, to be able to access nearby public lands. 

Commission Chairman Keaton West noted that the public access issue was especially sensitive because of the fear of not knowing what will ultimately happen with the Bureau of Land Management's Rock Springs Field Office Resource Management Plan. 

"Throughout the whole RMP process we fought to keep roads open," West said. 

He pointed out the desire to be careful with the decision-making process since vacating the road would be a final decision, and the commissioners wanted to know that doing so wouldn't limit available access. However, West also noted that the county had received some pushback over the discussions of the road, with some making the critique that the commissioners wanted to spend $1 million to develop a road going through someone's irrigation system. West pointed out that the commissioners didn't plan on that and hadn't brought up the idea to begin with, and they were only doing further research into a question that was brought to them.

While the commissioners noted the complexity of the decision as it related to some of the landowners in the area, they all agreed that the best course of action was to vacate the road, which they voted unanimously to approve.