NORWICH – A Guilford blueberry producer has asked the county’s highway department to reimburse him for $800 in labor costs and to replace dead plants he says he lost from too much sand placed in a culvert along the roadway adjacent to his crops.
Urbano D. Gonzalez of 1385 County Rt. 38 was on the agenda of a meeting of the Public Works Committee Sept. 20. He said the nearby culvert washed out during the floods last year, but was incorrectly repaired when the DPW dumped 20 inches of thick sand in to fill the void. The sand ended up covering his blueberries.
“Now the culvert cannot handle the water. I had to dig the ditch out,” he said. “I just want it put back the way it was before and reimburse me for my dead plants. I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable. I don’t think I am.”
Committee Chairman Harry Conley, R-Sherburne, said Gonzalez’ comments would be taken into consideration and someone from the committee would follow-up with him.
According to DOT Director Randy Gibbon, the farmer’s blueberry patch is off of the road’s right-of-way and not the county’s responsibility. “The issue is: We don’t go onto private property,” he said.
About a dozen other property owners have also complained about road and bridge work completed since the flood in 2005 and the recordbreaking floods in 2006. “The county’s attorney says it would be a theft of service to take care of a single, private individual. We can’t legally do that with taxpayer money,” Gibbon said.
Gibbon said the culvert has been in place and working adequately since the 1940s. “None were designed for a 100-year flood. We’ve done everything we could do, period.”
A Bainbridge property owner also presented a bill to the committee last month for cutting down a tree. Gary LeFever of 32 Juliand Road said he had to take down the tree because it was left teetering toward his property following a windstorm in August.
Bainbridge Supervisor Rich Chase said the tree was in “a risky position.”
Gibbon told the committee that he had been in contact with LeFever and planned to do the work this fall. “We were waiting to get a list of trees, to do more than one at a time and bid it out,” he said. “We would have gotten this down.”
“I feel sorry for the individual, but it was not in the right-of-way and we don’t own the tree. It is only our responsibility if it falls in the highway,” Gibbon said.