County Commissioner's Office

County Talk
By
Lamar Paris - Commissioner

Q. There was a letter to the editor two weeks ago and a letter this week from someone lamenting the fact that dogs were being left chained up in this county with no shelter or apparent food, and another letter this past week agreeing that a dog should not be chained 24/7. Why is this allowed to happen in Union County?
A. This is not allowed to happen in Union County.  We have received several complaints regarding this issue and each time we have dispatched our animal control officer to the scene to investigate.  In all cases, it was determined that the animals were being cared for and that they did have proper shelter, water and food available.

Union County ordinance strictly prohibits chaining of animals without proper shelter and care.  Apparently, some people ride by a home where an animal is chained and assume since they see no one when they ride by that no one is caring for the animals.  The evidence simply does not point to this being a problem, although there have certainly been instances of this happening in the past.

If anyone knows of such a case existing, please report it to animal control.  However, we have had a recent situation where I personally took the call, the person said the animals were not being cared for and had no shelter, water or food, but when we sent the animal control officer to the scene, the animals were healthy, had their shots, had food and had available shelter.

Q. What is being done on the Blue Ridge Highway with the culverts?
A. The county has contracted with a firm who is lining (repairing) many of the culverts on the Blue Ridge Highway.  It is a special vinyl type lining that is formed with very high pressure air and an extreme amount of heat.  The material blows up inside a culvert similar to a balloon, filling all the crevices and imperfections in the metal culverts.  The material then hardens and makes a smooth plastic like surface within the culverts extending their useful life for many, many years, often longer than the original useful life of the culvert.

Q. What is the advantage of using this method vs. installing new culverts?
A.  We first became aware of this system through the Georgia Department of Transportation and it is something they have begun using in certain situations. The greatest advantage is that the highway does not have to be dug up, the road closed, and the tremendous expense of compacting and repaving the road is spared. 

Q. Why are you using this culvert repair system on the Blue Ridge Highway and not over the entire county?
A. First, it is expensive to do and you basically only want to use this method when you have a major road that you do not want to close or dig up.  Secondly, since the Blue Ridge highway used to be a state highway, most of the culverts are in the same age range and are all needing replacing, so this will be a tremendous time and cost savings to the county.  In addition, many culverts have concrete headwalls which only increases the expense of replacing a culvert.  This unique repair process stops up any holes or rusted out portions of the culvert and because we have several close together, it makes the price more affordable.

Q. Will the Blue Ridge highway be repaved any time soon?
A. Yes.  About six miles should  be resurfaced this year under the state LARP program. At a minimum they will go out to bid this year.   This grant program from the State Department of Transportation will pay the entire cost of resurfacing this portion of the highway, including new striping.  This is about double the normal amount of LARP funding we normally receive, but by working closely with GDOT, Mike Evans, our GDOT Board Chairman, and the new Commissioner, Gena Abrahams, they were able to secure some additional funding for us this year, for which we are very grateful. We anticipate funding grants between $160,000 and $ 180,000 for this project.  We certainly want to thank everyone involved with GDOT that assisted with the LARP funding, and the other projects they are currently funding.

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