Members of the Marion County Highway Department told the County Board’s Road and Bridge Committee Tuesday night that equipment problems have been their biggest challenge during the current snow removal effort.
Chris Guy says they are also fighting the aftermath of the worst storm he has seen in his six years at the highway department. He reports right now three of their eight plow trucks that all date back to 2005 and 2006 are down for repairs further stretching their snow removal efforts. Guy says parts are hard to find for the Sterling trucks and they have spent $11,000 to $12,000 in repairs since the storms began.
Guy reported staff has worked 13 straight days with only one day off and has used 50 to 60 tons of salt and 200 tons of cinders. He noted salt can only be used on the ‘hard roads’ or major county highways. Guy says if salt is used on the oil and chip roads the pavement will be destroyed.
Marion County Board Chair Steve Whritenour felt the discussion was important so they can address needed improvements.
“We’re never going to have the resources of a state level on our 250 miles,” Whritenour said. “The state’s doing 170 miles in Marion County. They have twice the amount of manpower and (the county) is doing 250. That was the whole driving force behind discussing this in a committee meeting, was getting that information from them in front of the committee so everyone has to hear what is actually going on in Marion County as far as snow and ice removal. Those guys did a fantastic job with a very unique storm of snow, ice and more snow, and then five days later getting another five inches of snow on top of it.”
Whritenour says there is room to begin improvements in next year’s budget.
“I was encouraged to hear in their budget for 2025 that they do have money to purchase one, possibly two more used trucks, which will definitely be a benefit to keep those trucks out on the roads. I was also encouraged to hear that they just purchased $2700 of salt. We talked about possibly doing more pre-treating of the county roads with a little more on the salt side, getting that salt cinder mix a little bit stronger.”
The committee agreed they need to immediately begin searching for at least one good dump truck that can be used for plowing. Whritenour noted if there is a severe winter, like this one is shaping up, additional supplies can be purchased through contingency funds.
The Road and Bridge Committee Tuesday night interviewed three candidates interested in the Marion County Highway Engineer’s job. Whritenour had no timetable on when a decision on a new highway engineer to replace Mike McCormick might be made. McCormick resigned last October.
