Colorado County approves AT&T permits for buried fiber on Schobel and Calhoun roads

Colorado County Commissioners on Oct. 14 approved two applications from AT&T Communications to install buried fiber optic cable in county rights-of-way on Schobel Road in Precinct 3 and Calhoun Road in Precinct 4.

The court approved the motions by roll call, with Commissioner Keith Neuendorff moving for the Schobel Road permit and Commissioner Darrell Gertson moving for the Calhoun Road permit; both motions were seconded and carried 5-0. The applications and agreements filed with the court describe construction by directional bore and limited hand-dig methods, with detailed specifications for depth, traffic control and restoration.

According to the application materials in the record, the Schobel Road work would use a directional bore to place roughly 1,613 feet of buried fiber (plus a short hand-dig into a handhole) and the Calhoun Road project would place about 144 feet of fiber into an existing handhole. Both plans call for a minimum 40-inch burial depth where the conduit crosses the road and compliance with the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices during construction.

The county’s standard permit terms, reflected in the court packet, require applicants to post a performance bond ($2,500 per mile and $2,500 per boring), pay permit and inspection fees, submit detailed construction drawings, and accept responsibility for relocation costs if the county later alters the road. The agreement also specifies backfill and compaction standards for open road cuts and assigns responsibility to the applicant for repairs identified after construction.

The court’s approvals authorize county staff to issue the permits consistent with those application documents and the county’s right-of-way rules. The applicants listed in the files are AT&T Communications, with Byers Engineering acting as the contact/agent on the submitted plans and permit forms.