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By ERIC SLAGLE Daily News StafWriter
eslagle@dailynewsemail.com
With a West Virginia company interested in drilling for natural gas in
the municipality, Forward
Township has approved plans for a
$15,000 study to determine if local roads are up to such a project.
Supervisors say the township ’s
engineering firm HRG Engineering should be able to study 15 to 20 local
roads as part of the project approved Thursday.
The action comes in response to a drilling project in the area of
Elkhorn Road proposed by Mountain V Oil Gas Inc., of Bridgeport, W.Va.,
earlier this year. Supervisor Tom Headley said the
township is concerned that transportation of the equipment
used in the drilling project will destroy local roads. Through the
study, he said, the township will
likely be able to establish weight limits
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on local roads. “Some pieces of
equipment are 120 tons,” he said. “We can have thousands of truckloads
at very high weights traveling across the roads.” Even with an ordinance
putting weight restrictions on roads, the drilling company will be able
to use them but, in order to do so, Headley said, the company will have
to post a bond of $6,000 per mile for unpaved roads and $12,000 per mile
for paved roads. “It’s not adequate” to cover the cost of restoring an
asphalt road, Headley said of the bond amount, noting that actual
restoration costs can run about $100,000 per mile, but he said the
action will help hold drill ers liable for roads that
may be destroyed during the project. Headley said the state has most
control over gas and oil projects; creating a weight restriction
ordinance is one of the few ways municipalities can locally regulate
such projects. In other business, supervisors approved the purchase of a
new Ford Crown Victoria police car to replace a like-model police car
with 172,000 miles. The cost of the new car is $23,115. The
township put a $15,000 state Department
of Community and Economic
See DRILLING , Page
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