METRO DIGEST || Brine pre-treatment cuts road salt costs

Money saved by brine

WARREN

The Trumbull County engineer’s office says it may have saved more than $10,000 by using brine pretreatment on 120 miles of county roads Friday morning in anticipation of icy road conditions Saturday and Sunday.

Tom Klejka, assistant highway superintendent for county Engineer Randy Smith, said two trucks sprayed brine on the busiest roads in 12 townships in the county, and the result was that those roads were not icy Saturday.

Some other roads — less-traveled roads that had not been pretreated — needed salt on them Saturday to give drivers traction, he said.

But sending just one truck out to salt those roads cost a fraction of what it would have cost to send out 24 trucks to treat all of the roads with salt, Klejka said.

The county began using brine pretreatment this winter as a cost-saving measure after the price of road salt skyrocketed.

Stolen truck recovered

BOARDMAN

A stolen truck was recovered early Wednesday after township police stopped the vehicle because it was entered into a stolen-vehicles database by Austintown police.

Police stopped a white Chevrolet Silverado on Market Street after confirming it was stolen, and arrested the driver, Samuel Richard, 26, of Youngstown, on a charge of receiving stolen property.

Police also discovered that Richard had multiple license suspensions. Austintown police confirmed the truck was stolen during a burglary.

Richard posted bond and is scheduled to appear in Mahoning County Area Court today.

Johnson’s bill passes

WASHINGTON

A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-6th, to expedite the approval process of liquified natural-gas export permits passed in the House by a 277-133 vote Wednesday.

“This legislation is a significant job creator,” said Johnson of Marietta, whose district includes all of Columbiana County and a portion of Mahoning County. “Some estimates suggest that the construction associated with LNG export terminals would support the creation of 45,000 jobs. Additionally, this bill would further spur our manufacturing industry’s comeback — estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created because of increased natural-gas production and development.”

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

Erosion delays sledding

WARREN

Soil erosion has delayed the start-up of the Trumbull County MetroParks sled-riding hill at the Eastlake Metropark on state Route 46 in Cortland, just north of the Lake Vista retirement community.

Zachary Svette, projects manager for the MetroParks, said officials discovered around Thanksgiving, after the first snowfall of the year, that the grass that had been seeded on the hill had not matured sufficiently to keep the soil in place, so the soil eroded.

The MetroParks will have to address the erosion in the spring, so the hill will not be ready for use until next winter.

MetroParks officials had expected the hill to be ready this winter.

Abduction sentence

WARREN

Hale H. Burkholder III, 35, of Thomas Street in North Jackson, was sentenced to four years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty before Judge W. Wyatt McKay of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court to abduction and attempted rape.

Niles police said he kidnapped a 28-year-old woman and tried to sexually assault her in a wooded area near McKees Lane in Niles on July 2. The woman had been riding in his pickup truck.