The Henderson County Fiscal Court—and more specifically County Engineer Nick Stallings—have found a plan to correct a road slide on Green River Road #1, which has been an issue since early February when the slide occurred.
Stallings told the court Tuesday that he’d obtained a $150,000 grant from a state government emergency fund to rebuild a section of the road. A Henderson County Roads Department employee told the Hendersonian later that the money is coming from the state’s Rural Roads Emergency Funds.
In an April meeting, the Fiscal Court didn’t give a favorable response to rebuilding the road and seemed to be leaning toward closing it. The cost of rebuilding a section of the road 50 feet back from the area of the slide was estimated to be about $220,000, which would have all been paid out of the county government budget.
The cost of shutting down the section of the road by placing fences on either side of the slide was estimated at $20,000.
But with the state’s funding and $90,000 approved by the court to complete the job, the Fiscal Court OK’d Stallings to begin work on moving a section of the road back 50 feet back from the location of the current roadway, which runs right next to the Green River.
The area of the slide will also be shored up, Stallings said.
At a previous meeting, Stallings presented the court with three options. First was to rebuild the road in its current location, which was estimated to cost between $378,000 and $437,000. A second was to close the road by putting up fences at two locations on either side of slide.
The third—and the court’s ultimate choice—was to move back the section of road back 50 feet. This will move the section of the road into Kentucky Division of Forestry land.
