Truck firms to suffer stiff fines for not following approved roads to Sugar Creek Wind Farm

 

[July 18, 2019] 

At the Logan County Board meeting on Tuesday, July 16, board member Chuck Ruben said the agreement with the Sugar Creek Wind Farm to not drive on county roads has been unsuccessful.

There was a problem earlier this month with some of the dump trucks bringing loads of fill material in to build the new switchyard not staying on the designated routes.

Liberty Power’s Environmental Permitting and Construction Manager Riley Griffin said there are defined routes and 800 dump trucks came in between June 21 and July 9 as they worked on setting up the switchyard.

Griffin and the company have done their own investigation to try to find the contractors involved, but have not been able to find who did not follow the designated route and the exact date and time the problem happened, though he has talked to several people.

Logan County Highway Engineer Bret Aukamp also went out to look and see if he could find out anything and said he has not found out anything either. Aukamp said even with his department working in different parts of the county, they are not able to control every single road.

Having been spread thin on other jobs, Aukamp said unfortunately he has not been able to control the problem either. Allowing Liberty Power to move forward with bring materials in for the switchyard before the road use agreement was in place was one of Aukamp’s concerns because things like this problem could potentially happen.

Aukamp plans to keep a much closer eye on things now to make sure the problem does not occur again.

The contractors were not unsupervised because people are managing the site, but Griffin said since he was made aware of the incident, he has now had discussions with the drivers about what the haul routes are and the need for compliance.

Ruben found out about the problem last Friday and said he was livid. Ruben said he was hoping for more information from the Liberty Power representatives.

Through talking to several people, Ruben said he found that more than 30 trucks drove from 136 by Emden on the county road through Burtonview to Route 10 multiple times. People do not want to name who did it because they use the same truck firms. Though Ruben said he does not care who did not stay on the designated roads he knows it was done.

Ruben championed Liberty Power and said the board would allow them to do the what was needed to get the switchyard done on time. Now Ruben said he feels it is a slap in the face after Liberty Power promised they would do what they should when building the switchyard.

Liberty Power representatives asked some of the same questions about the problem and got the same responses, so Griffin said he could understand how Ruben feels.

Since the contract is with Liberty Power, Ruben said they should be held responsible.

Board member Bob Sanders said when the board discussed the issue [of the company needing to haul in loads for the switchyard] in May, he was concerned. He said when you “give an inch, they take a mile” and feels there needs to be zero tolerance from now on.

Aukamp said fines are $5,000 per truck per load if they fail to comply, but to enforce fines, they must have locations and times of day the trucks did not comply and know which ones were not in compliance.

Ruben asked Liberty Power what they will do to ensure the problem does not occur again.

Griffin said the company will better emphasize rules and designated haul routes and give truck drivers a map with the haul routes for easy reference. In orientation for the project, Griffin plans to have the truckers sign a paper saying they have reviewed the information.

[Angela Reiners]