A City Councilman in the city of Piedmont is blaming oil well drilling activity around his city for messy and muddy roads and he wants the city ordinances updated to deal with the problem.
Byron Schlomach, the Ward 5 Council member complained at a recent meeting about the damage to Arrowhead Road and NW 192 according to the Yukon Progress.
Schlomach presented photos of damage to roadways and blamed nearby oil paid operations.
“I’m referring to oil pads that are along Arrowhead Road NW which I live on. There are three in particular,” he said during the meeting.
The Councilman said the heavy oilfield traffic has left roads badly damaged and caused erosion.
“We wold not put up with this kind of thing from a commercial site in a New York minute,” he told the other council members. “These pads, these fracking wells, sometimes the traffic is a lot heavier than any commercial site we have in town, and I just think we need to come in with a tougher ordinance.”
Schlomach also said, according to the Yukon Progress, that the existing ordinance that mostly concerns access roads to oil well sites has not been enforced.
“We haven’t been doing a good job of regulating how this impacts other people,how it impacts how our town looks, and we need to be tougher on these well sites,” he added.
The newspaper stated that the city council voted unanimously to ask the city attorney to research and possibly draft an ordinance based on the discussion and Schlomach’s complaints.
