Oilfield truck traffic hurting county roads

Increased oilfield traffic in the southern reaches of Eddy County is causing damage to county roads that were not built to accommodate heavy trucks. To address the issues, county leaders, Bureau of Land Management officials from the Carlsbad Field Office and representatives from the oil and gas industry are meeting to see if a coalition can be formed to help the county with road maintenance and road development in the future. Jim Stovall, BLM Carlsbad Field Office manager, said last week BLM staff and county commissioners sat down together for a preliminary meeting. Future meetings will include representatives from the oil and gas industry. Eddy County Commissioner Tony Hernandez said oil and gas traffic has increased at an "extreme rate," especially in District 1, which is his district. "Those vehicles are doing a lot of damage to our roads. The roads are old rural roads that were probably built 30 to 40 years ago and utilized by the ranching community" Hernandez said. "The roads were not built to accommodate heavy oilfield trucks. I get phone calls on a daily basis regarding county road conditions. It's not that our road department is not doing its job. They can't keep up with the maintenance because of the rough conditions of the county roads caused by oilfield traffic."...more