County, city road engineers face perfect storm after hard winter
The fact that Illinois is in the fifth and last year of its $500 million capital construction program and that the local share of motor fuel tax money hasn't increased since 1992 has created "a recipe for disaster" in dealing with winter-damaged roads during the spring thaw across Southern Illinois.
Yet, the cost of road oil and its application have climbed three-fold from 80 cents a gallon to $2.40 a gallon. The price for labor and equipment keeps going up. "The capital construction program was $500 million. The state will go through the last $100 million this year."
That is the assessment of Du Quoin Public Works director Doug Bishop. Du Quoin has 40 miles of city streets.
This Perfect Storm could decimate municipal, county and township road budgets as heavy farm trucks and semi-tractor trailers plow down fragile roads and streets. "The formula has always been that one semi-tractor trailer truck will do as much damage to a road as 50,000 cars going down it," said Bishop.
"The federal motor fuel tax is about 19 cents a gallon and the state tax is about 18.5 cents a gallon. That hasn't changed since 1992. We only get a small share of that," Bishop said. "But, the cost of road oil and applying it has gone from 80 cents a gallon to $2.40 a gallon," he said.
"Towns and counties have severe underfunding for the kind of winter we had," said Bishop. "We have already raised our maintenance budget here in Du Quoin from $150,000 last year to $170,000 this year and we may have to raise it again," said Bishop.
"I have already started an assessment and we have a bunch of damage here in Du Quoin. We've got our work cut out for us. And, I'm not talking about side roads; I am talking about main streets in Du Quoin like Line Street," he said.
"We are seeing severe distress from the freezing and thawing. The frost went very deep," he said. And, water from recent rains has nowhere to go because the ground is still frozen once you go down four or five inches," he said.
"It's not just here. It's all over the country," he said.
The Perry County Highway Department takes care of 400 miles of unit district roads and 120 miles of county highways. In the outback, some of the roads become so soft after the spring thaw that farmers trying to move the rest of their fall harvest to the elevators are calling to get permission to drive down a road.
Some companies like Oelze Oil Co. of Nashville, which have oil operations all over northern Perry County, are very caring and call the department every time they perceive an issue of their trucks being on rural roads. Some corporate farming operations are less caring. By their nature, many farms are located at the end of roads that start out solid and with a muddy mess along the way.
The softest spots in Perry County are easily identifiable-Sandpiper Road, Farmers Market Road, Black Pine Road and others.
A deep freeze with a lot of snow and ice spells disaster. When temperatures in the teens and 20s for several weeks melt into temperatures in the 40s and 50s the rural roads you think are solid turn to mud and the ruts run deep. Putting heavy equipment on them too early creates a felony, but taxpaying farmers and homeowners start calling highway departments quickly.
The Perry County Highway Department will usually try and work two road graders and three rock-hauling trucks in one area at a time to repair roads from a hard winter. The roads are more workable the dryer they get.
Local street superintendents and engineers all say the same thing. It will take all summer and two years worth of money to repair one winter worth of damage.