Engineer proposes road agreement to address fracking

Athens County Engineer Archie Stanley Tuesday presented the county commissioners with a road maintenance agreement as a precautionary measure against the potential impacts of a potential boom in shale oil development in the area.

"Our intent is to protect our roads and bridges, period," Stanley said. "It's not a whole lot different than what we've done before, but it makes it a more regional approach. And it's more legal, I think; it's easier to enforce."

Stanley told the commissioners that his office probably drove county Prosecutor Keller Blackburn crazy sending him altered draft after altered draft to review.

At this point, he said, his office is working on collecting the signatures of Blackburn, the county commissioners and all of the county's township trustees.

"Eventually, we would like to present this to other people that might ask us about it, such as the cities or municipalities, as a possible agreement for their use," Stanley said.

The agreement presented by Stanley states that his office will create a detailed video record of the pre-existing conditions of roadways that could be potentially impacted. It also states that if a given company requests or needs modifications of roadways in order to meet certain standards, that company will have to pay for those modifications.

Furthermore, if a roadway suffers damage, the company will be held responsible for making the appropriate repairs, which also must meet all Ohio Department of Transportation guidelines.

If a company fails to make such repairs, the county engineer will have authority to stop all activities on ongoing and/or new oil or gas well sites, as well as any other construction projects.

"Ultimately, we hope to take this agreement and combine it with our culvert and utility agreements all into one big one," Stanley said. "The covers not just heavy trucks for fracking. It covers logging or mining or anything else."

The commissioners said that they will review the materials over the coming week but also that they are confident Blackburn and Stanley were thorough in drafting the document.

Stanley said that that heavy trucks and equipment – the presence of which increase exponentially when large-scale oil and gas fracking operations begin in an area – have the potential to severely damage area roads and bridges.

"This new agreement will add a valuable tool to the ways we can protect our roads and bridges," he said. "It will mean saving a lot of taxpayer money and protecting our residents and travelers."

He said that all the traveling public, including logging, mining, and oil and gas company trucks, must obey posted bridge load limits.

"Our bridges are formally inspected at least annually and rated according to state and federal guidelines as to their load rating, and the limits are approved and journalized by the Board of Athens County Commissioners," Stanley said. "We have been asked many times but never do we allow waivers from these posted weight limits. The posted weight limit represents our best analysis of what load the bridge will safely withstand."