Residents say mining trucks are damaging roads, health on County Road 350; county and Little River Materials agree to meet

Residents near County Road 350 told the Chilton County Commission that heavy truck traffic tied to a nearby mining operation is producing constant dust, damaging the road and affecting health and livelihoods.

Peggy Bird Burdock, who said she runs a horse farm on the road, told commissioners "the dust these trucks create is extreme" and said one horse was diagnosed with asthma and had to be rehomed. She said the road is not designed for the volume of heavy trucks and asked the county to consider paving or an alternate route.

Fletcher Wilkinson, a representative of Little River Materials, told the commission the company has bought equipment to help maintain the road and that "we scale every single truck out. Every truck that goes out of our side is a legal weight." He said the company bought a motor grader and a water truck and hired a full-time employee to wet the road, and offered to donate base material from its pit to help rebuild the road.

County staff and elected officials acknowledged the scale of the problem, and county staff described engineering options. The county engineer (referred to in the meeting as Heath) recommended full-depth reconstruction where needed, including a stronger base — "cement stabilization, or you could come in and add clay gravel base, 6 to 8 inches" — and realigning a sharp curve where required. Commissioners said full-depth reclamation is more durable and that paving the road without rebuilding the base would be wasteful.

Commissioners and staff agreed to arrange a meeting with Little River Materials, the county engineer and local landowners to develop a plan for stabilizing and surfacing the road. An engineer estimated a rough cost of about $375,000 to reconstruct about a mile of road, and county staff said that funding is not currently in the budget. Little River Materials said it would be willing to donate base materials and to work with the county on options.

County officials also raised enforcement and mitigation options discussed at the meeting, including increased watering, possible lower speed limits on the county road, improved weigh-station enforcement at County Road 37, and examination of alternate access routes where allowed by wetlands and right-of-way constraints.

The county did not take a formal vote in this session. Commissioners directed staff to meet with Little River Materials and affected landowners, have the county engineer survey the road and prepare cost and scope options for possible reconstruction and dust-control measures. No timetable was set for any final work; staff said they will follow up and return recommendations to the commission.