By CHRIS FROST
Eagle Times News Editor
WEATHERSFIELD, VT — While salt is a blessing for drivers when the town’s Highway Department spreads it over wintry roads, problems with the current salt shed have the Highway Department considering alternatives for the facility.
The Weathersfield Select Board discussed a scoping study during a Monday, Dec. 18 meeting.
The report investigates shed designs and locations, the proper size to accommodate operations, and provides cost estimates that allow the community to budget for future improvements.
The town wants to replace the shed to stop salt from leeching into the ground. Already, the town has had to replace a neighbor’s well.
Ray Stapleton, from the Highway Department, said the project started about five years ago.
“I offered to start looking for grants to find money to do it so that it wouldn’t be all on the town,” Stapleton said. “The grant is for a scoping study for the proper design of a salt shed at the highway department garage. In that process, you applied three or four times and got denied for the project.”
Stapleton said the scoping study gives the town a tool to utilize when they apply for grants. The town must submit the grant by June 30.
Engineer Chris Rivet from DuBois & King said they are working with Mount Ascutney Regional Commission on the VT Grant.
“You guys are the ultimate client,” said Rivet. “We take direction from you, as the board, and continue to move forward and help us make decisions through this process.”
He said VTrans has a prescribed methodology for its processes.
“One of them is a local-concerns meeting to get feedback from the townsfolk and you as the board,” he said. “What we do during this process is we look at the overall site and identify any constraints that may affect being able to build a new salt shed.”
Selectman David Fuller has owned a farm for 47 years and said there is a reason why farms across the state have moved away from silos to ground storage.
“Machinery breaks, and there is operator error, and there is a cost to putting it in a silo, which is a contained unit, which is like a building, versus open air, dump trucks,” said Fuller. “It’s much easier to work around.”
He said the town had to build a new well for a neighbor because trucks came in and dumped on the side of the road at the entrance of garage.
“The salt shed was not located where it is now; it was located at Stilton Pond Road, at the very entrance of the Highway Department,” Fuller said. “Just like farms did with their silage trucks. … Our existing site was not the point source of pollution for the salt.”
The current salt shed, however, is not in good shape and its configuration, with salt dumped through a grate, could be improved.
Rivet said DuBois & King would provide the budgetary need for construction, and a completed engineering report would make the town more competitive for a grant.
Rivet said a second meeting is planned for February.
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