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Mahoning County reaps corporate paving bonanza
YOUNGSTOWN
Mahoning County has reaped a bonanza in road repaving performed by oil and gas companies and FirstEnergy over the past two years.
These companies improved county and township roads in conjunction with their projects.
The road resurfacing paid for by corporations far exceeded what the county could achieve under its tax-funded regular paving program, which typically resurfaces about 10 miles of roads annually.
The corporate repaving was done under road-use maintenance agreements with the county, which require companies to repair roads their truck traffic and installations might damage.
“They’re paid for by them as a means of fixing what they break, essentially,” county Engineer Patrick Ginnetti said of the company-paid paving efforts. “They’re running on a lot of our roads that were never engineered to handle loads like that,” he added.
“A lot of our more-rural county roads were buggy paths — farm to market roads — back in the old days. They were paved years ago, but never designed and engineered to handle certain loads, so, when you come in with these large construction loads, the roads are going to break up,” Ginnetti explained.
“With these infrastructure projects, there are continuous loads moving — a lot of heavy stone, timber mats, pipe, dozers and excavators,” he said.
“It’s unfair if somebody breaks a road and you have to put that burden back on the taxpayers,” Ginnetti observed.
In many cases, the companies do the paving before their projects begin and, in some cases, they rebuild the road base in addition to paving.
Total paving over the past two years was 104.5 miles of combined county and township roads.
Total resurfacing of county and township roads in Mahoning County was an unprecedented 73.81 miles in 2014; with 30.69 miles repaved in 2013.
In 2014, the largest paver was Sunoco, whose 37.32 miles accounted for more than half of that year’s total.
Sunoco, which repaved long stretches of Leffingwell and Berlin Station roads, performed the work in conjunction with its installation of a new underground pipeline in its existing right-of-way across Mahoning County.
The pipeline route, known as the Allegheny Access Pipeline, carries refined petroleum products from western Ohio refineries to eastern Ohio and the Pittsburgh area.
“We do try to be a good neighbor and a good corporate citizen in the communities where we operate,” said Jeff Shields, communications manager for Sunoco Logistics.
“We understand that the construction projects have some degree of impact, and we are always willing to work with the counties to make sure that they’re treated fairly,” he added.
Next in 2014 road repaving mileage was First Energy, which resurfaced 23.64 miles, primarily in western Mahoning County, where it installed a new overhead electric-power transmission line in an existing right-of-way.
Funds from NiSource and state grants repaved 2.57 miles of roads in Springfield Township in conjunction with NiSource’s newly constructed Hickory Bend natural-gas processing plant at State Line and Middletown roads in that township.
Sarah Barczyk, NiSource community-outreach manager, said the company has spent more than $1.5 million on Mahoning County road improvements.
“The people of Springfield Township and Mahoning County have welcomed us into their communities, and we want to continue to demonstrate that we’re in this for the long haul and committed to being a good neighbor to these communities,” she said.
Real-estate taxes paid by the Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course racino, which opened in September, paid for the 2014 resurfacing of Victoria East and East Webb roads in Austintown, which together totaled 0.95 of a mile.
The county’s regular 2014 paving program consisted of 6.35 miles paved with Ohio Public Works Commission monies and 2.99 miles paved with the county’s motor-vehicle fuel tax and motor-vehicle license-plate fee income.
“They’ve cooperated with us,” Ginnetti said of the oil and gas companies and the electric utility. “It took a lot of effort between my office and their offices to come to the agreements that we have, but they’ve honored everything. We’re grateful for their being here. We’re grateful for what they’ve done,” he added.
“Certainly, the county couldn’t pave nearly 74 miles with our budget” within one year, Ginnetti noted. The county engineer’s annual operating budget is about $10 million.
The oil and gas and utility projects have benefitted local contractors and workers in the construction trades, he said. “There’s a tremendous economic impact,” he observed.
“It’s revitalizing our area. It’s putting money back in the pockets of local people. They’re spending it here,” he said of the infrastructure installation effort.
The repaving of significant county road mileage allows the engineer’s office staff to reduce pothole patching efforts and concentrate the patching elsewhere, Ginnetti observed.
In 2013, NiSource resurfaced about 10 miles of roads in Poland and Springfield townships near its State Line Road plant.
Halcon performed road resurfacing in Jackson Township near one of its drilling sites; and the county and Chesapeake Energy jointly repaved a portion of Newton Falls Road in Milton Township in connection with a drilling site.
The county paved 10 miles of roads with asphalt that year and used a chip-and-seal surface treatment on an additional six miles. Chip-and-seal normally is used on low-traffic rural roads. In the chip-and-seal process, tar is applied to the road, and limestone chips are rolled down on top of it.
Robert Orr, Springfield Township trustee, estimated that some 16 miles of county roads and 9 miles of township roads were repaved in his township over the past two years in the combined efforts of NiSource, Sunoco and FirstEnergy.
FirstEnergy is upgrading its electrical transmission line to the NiSource plant, Ginnetti said.
Some of the county roads repaved were Western Reserve, Beard, Unity, Calla, Pine Lake and Columbiana roads.
“We’re so thankful for oil and gas [companies’] paving of roads. We’d never get caught up on our paving without them,” given the limitations of county and township budgets, Orr said.
In Mahoning County, there are 485 miles of county roads and 528 miles of township roads.
Orr said he’d give NiSource, Sunoco and First Energy A+ grades for their corporate citizenship because of their emphasis on safety and on addressing the concerns of local residents.