Paperwork, easements and weather slow several Perry County road projects

Perry County Engineer DeAndrae Kimbrough knows it takes more than asphalt and equipment to resurface a road. It also takes some patience.

Take County Road 65, for instance. Work on CR-65 started in August, but the project is currently on hold. “CR-65 is really two separate projects,” Kimbrough explained. “CR-65 is about nine miles long, and there’s a little bit of CR-53, so the whole thing is about 10 miles. Five miles of that is covered by the county’s Rebuild Alabama funds; the other half is covered by a USDA grant and loan.”

Kimbrough said the holdup is getting the legal paperwork and documentation completed and signed by the proper government representatives and by the county attorney.

“The half covered by the Rebuild Alabama funds is ready,” he said. “We have that money.” The USDA money isn’t yet available, but the whole project is on hold because for logistical reasons, the same contractor needs to lay down the asphalt for both projects, according to Kimbrough.

“We thought it would be completed by now,” he said. Kimbrough said he does not have an exact date for the asphalt to be laid, but county commissioners said at the Jan. 25 Perry County Commission meeting that the project needs to be completed soon.

So far, the work on CR-65 has been undergoing what it called full depth reclamation, where the current surface is ground up and laid back down then covered with tar. This is not the final surface, Kimbrough said. The road will have about an inch and a half of new pavement when it’s completed.

A project similar to the one on CR-65 is planned for CR-12. This project will also include a full depth reclamation. But such projects must be done during moderate temperatures, so they must be done from April to October. Because the project wasn’t let until August, it will get started in April, Kimbrough said.

Part of the project involves the CR-12 intersections with SR-5 and SR-183. This is covered by ATRIP-2 funding because it involves state roads. However, the state needs to purchase an easement on SR-183 for this project. Kimbrough said there are about 30 heirs involved in the purchase. A hearing for the land purchase was scheduled for Jan. 26 but has been moved to sometime in February.

There is also a project planned to resurface CR-45 from CR-6 to the Dallas County line. Kimbrough said this project will most likely start in late summer.

“We still have to get CR-65 completed,” Kimbrough said. “That project also depends on if we have any (cost) overruns on CR-65 because some of the funding may have to be taken from the CR-45 project. Once we start it, it should be roughly a month for it to be completed.”

Kimbrough said this is the first time Perry County has been able to create “an actual road plan.”

“We used to get federal money, but you have to match that with 20% (local funds), and we didn’t always know where we would get the matching funds,” he said. With the Rebuild Alabama funds, “we estimated to get a little over a $1 million we can apply directly to roads.”

Rebuild Alabama funds can be used to repair roads that would have been overlooked by federal dollars, which only repair busy roads they call “major collectors.” Plus, Rebuild Alabama money can be used to match federal grants, Kimbrough said.

Kimbrough said, “We ask everyone to just be a little patient.”