Rough road rocks Dry Fork residents

DRY FORK — The potholes are so bad in Charles Eatmon’s neighborhood that residents have each spent hundreds of dollars to repair tire misalignments on their vehicles.

They’ve also pooled funds and spent thousands over the years to try to keep their road, White Tail Avenue off Route 41, in drivable condition. Someone brings them gravel and a neighbor or a friend spreads it over the road to fill the potholes. Then the rains come and it’s back to square one.

About driving along the avenue and its branching lanes, Eatmon said: “You’re tearing your vehicles all to pieces.”

Eatmon and his neighbors have written letters to the governor and other local representatives about the problem to no avail, he said. When property owners bought homes in the area several years ago, they were told the state would take over the road in 2008 and maintain it.

2008 came and went but White Tail Avenue and nearby side roads are still treacherous.

“We have tried everything and we can’t get (anybody’s) attention,” Eatmon, who lives on Buckview Lane off White Tail, said Thursday. White Tail Avenue is about eight-tenths of a mile long. The road is private and collectively owned by the property owners, Eatmon said.

When Eatmon moved to the neighborhood, which includes about 30 residences, about four years ago, his restored 1986 Camaro was like a brand-new car. Now it shakes and rattles when driven, he said. He constantly has to get his late-model pickup truck realigned.

He’s not the only one.

Joey Crabb, who lives on Gobbler Lane off White Tail Avenue, had to spend $600 for work on his Chevy Silverado, including an alignment. His wife, Shelley, blew a tire on the couple’s Dodge Durango from battling with so many potholes.

Residents would just like to see the road improved, either by Pittsylvania County or the state, even if it only means gravel and regular maintenance. Joey Crabb said he has contacted Rep. Tom Perriello, D-5TH District, but has received no response. He sent a letter to the governor’s office and Transportation Secretary Pierce R. Homer returned the message.

According to Homer, there are two ways a non-state road like White Tail Avenue can be entered into the state’s system. First, it would have needed to “have been constructed to state standards based on the development it serves, at which time the county asks that it be taken into the state system,” Homer wrote in the April 27, 2009 letter to Crabb. The developer or property owners would be responsible for improving the road to state standards, Homer wrote.

The second way would be to enter the road as a rural addition. In that instance, the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors would have to provide funds to the Virginia Department of Transportation to rebuild the road. Also, “the right of way must have been dedicated to public use and all utilities that would interfere with construction must have been relocated, all at no cost to the project,” Homer wrote. However,  the road must have been shown on a plat or open to public use before 1992 to be included under the state’s rural addition program.

The plat of the subdivision wasn’t recorded until 1997, Homer pointed out in the letter.

Tunstall Supervisor Tim Barber said he tried unsuccessfully on the residents’ behalf to convince the state to take it over about four years ago. There is nothing the county can do, he said. Barber said he would be happy to try again.

However, “it’s a state call, not a county call,” said Barber, whose district includes the neighborhood. “It would be up to VDOT at the end of the day.”

Chatham-Blairs Supervisor and Board Chairman Hank Davis said road maintenance and upkeep is not the county’s job, but is handled by the state highway department. 

But residents like Larry Tickle, who has used his own tractor to spread gravel and fill potholes, say neighbors were told that the road had to meet state standards before homes could be built there. Now the houses line the road but it fails to meet state code because the commonwealth hasn’t maintained it, Tickle said.

Resident Tom Hubert, who used to work in road construction, said he is concerned about the silica dust kicked up by vehicles passing by on the dirt road. It can cause breathing problems, Hubert said. Also, it leaves dust inside residents’ homes, Eatmon said.

Hubert said the money residents spend on road upkeep is futile.

“We’re wasting that $3,000 every year,” Hubert said. “Every year we waste, the price of blacktop goes up,” he said.