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Gov. Justice Delivers Heavy Equipment to Marshall County

The first of 10 Gradall excavators was hand-delivered by Gov. Jim Justice to the District 6 Division of Highways offices Tuesday afternoon.

Justice clamored out of a tractor trailer hauling the excavator, carrying it down the short DOT Drive which had been closed off between 12th Street and Teletech Avenue. Justice presented the excavator as the first of the 10 machines to be delivered -- one for each of the state's districts -- as District 6, which consists of the Northern Panhandle down through Tyler County, had the worst roads in the state.

"It's nothing to be proud of, but in all honesty, there's a lot of counties where the roads are torn up, but in Marshall County, it was probably the worst," Justice said. "People don't want much. They just want to be able to go to the convenience store and not tear their car up, or for an ambulance to be able to get to their home if there's an emergency."

Justice said the oil and gas companies, which frequently drive the secondary roads hauling sand or water, share part of the responsibility for road maintenance, but he doesn't want to be too harsh on them because he feels the companies bring much-needed money and jobs to the area.

"There's no question that the gas companies shoulder some of, if not a good bit of, the blame. And we've got to address all that. At the same time, we benefit significantly from the gas companies and what they're doing, so that's a balancing act as well. In the end, it doesn't matter why, it just has to get done," he said.

"You can't think decades of neglect are going to get done tomorrow, but we're on it," Justice added. "Our surpluses are enabling us to do more and more and more, and we're trying to shuttle every dollar we possibly can into our secondary roads."

The Gradall excavator, resembling a large backhoe, will enable the district to work more effectively. Justice said one does the job of numerous machines.

"It does fancy-Dan work that it would take six or eight backhoes to do," Justice said. "This machine will repair slips, pull ditches, solve pipe and do everything itself. It does so much more, so much faster.

"This absolutely is a machine that is so badly needed in our counties and our districts, it's unbelievable."

Jimmy Wriston, deputy secretary of the Department of Transportation, estimated that the excavators cost about $400,000 each.

Justice also spoke on the work that has been completed so far. In particular, Justice praised road crews for patching 990 miles of road, paving 65 miles of lanes, excavating 365 miles of ditches and laying more than 5,000 feet of pipe, as well as repairing 39 slips in the district, 21 of which were just in Marshall County, the most of any in the state. In addition, 373 miles of unpaved road were restored.