Road is in rough shape

High water signs became commonplace at times this summer, but drivers on the eastern half of county road 300 South have probably noticed a new yellow caution sign: “travel at your own risk.”
It’s the first time Jay County is using signs with that message, highway department superintendent Ken Wellman said.
The potential risk stems from damage to the road done by cement mixers and other vehicles involved in construction at Green Valley Ranch, a confined feeding operation at 2104 E. 300 South.
There are about “half a dozen spots tore up pretty bad” on the road, county engineer Dan Watson said.
Paul Rines drives over the rough spots daily on his way to Portland.
“This is getting ridiculous,” said Rines, who can see the construction from his front door at 3131 E. 300 South.
County Commissioner Faron Parr said while there aren’t a lot of residents on 300 South, he knows those who do live there are “concerned and aggravated.”
“You can’t blame them,” he said. “I would be too.”
But, Parr said, “the whole road didn’t fall apart.”
It’s not as bad, for example, for Ken Moeller, who lives in Ohio but farms land at 6641 E. 300 South. Coming in from the east, he doesn’t drive over the road’s biggest holes, which are near Green Valley Ranch’s driveway.
West of Green Valley Ranch, two sections of the road have been cut out and replaced by stone, Wellman said. But repaving is on hold until construction of the facility is complete and the extent of the damage is known.
“It’s a wait and see type thing,” Wellman said.
Green Valley Ranch’s plans include five chicken layer barns, an egg-processing building and an egg wash lagoon.
Parr and Watson agreed with Wellman that until construction is over, it’s not worth investing too much in a road that will receive more damage. The road will likely get more patches before winter, but no permanent repairs.
“We don’t have the funds to go in there and be proactive,” Watson said.
Cement mixers are the most damaging vehicles, Watson said. On the busiest days, Rines has seen 20 cement trucks make deliveries to Green Valley Ranch.
But the damage isn’t solely because of traffic. Two other factors combined to exacerbate the situation: heavy rain and the closure of Indiana 26.
When roads get as saturated with water as they did during this summer’s flooding, they get softer and are more vulnerable to damage, Watson said. And because a section of Indiana 26 is closed, vehicles are traveling on county roads they wouldn’t otherwise.
Some traffic on county roads is unavoidable; that’s just where some CFOs are located. But there are also semi drivers who don’t take the proper detours, and there are trucks bound for CFOs on routes that cover more miles of county roads than they usually would, Watson said.
“We’ve never had to deal with this kind of traffic,” he said, noting that the county’s first CFOs were off state roads.
Moeller wasn’t surprised that the road has seen damage. In the past, he’s hauled tomatoes in trailers that were within weight limits but that still hurt the road, he said.
“If the road ain’t very good in the first place, it won’t take much to make it worse,” he said.
While 300 South is the most damaged road, Watson said the county will also need to fix CFO-related damage on county roads 300 East and 700 East. Another confined feeding operation on Division Road has yet to begin construction. In each case, the county will take a “wait and see” approach to addressing damages.
In April, the county commissioners discussed whether there was a way to hold owners of confined feeding operations accountable for the damage their construction does to roads; there was not. Five months later, that’s still the case.
A confined feeding study committee’s June recommendations did not address road repair. The committee met Sept. 15 to work on updated recommendations, though the updates still may not cover damaged roads.
Rines thinks the construction plan should have included Green Valley Ranch paying to fix damage to the road.
“The county shouldn’t pay for it at all,” he said.
But Jay County will only get money to fix roads from CFOs if the operations choose to give money, as Green Valley Ranch owner Mike Osterholt did at an Aug. 10 commissioners meeting.
Osterholt donated $10,000 to the highway department, an act that the commissioners noted was a first by any Jay County confined feeding operation. No other confined feeding operations have made donations since then, Wellman said.
“We’re just trying to do the right thing,” Osterholt said later.
At this morning’s commissioners meeting, Wellman said Osterholt is considering providing further financial help to fix the road.