Dear Editor:
As extinction draws ever nearer for family dairy farms, construction forges ever forward on the latest blight to our rural landscape, the 5,000-head CAFO known as Wildwood Dairy. The backbone of this massive undertaking is, unfortunately, the gravel road system of Grovena Township. This invertebrate network cannot handle the onslaught of commercial vehicles associated with said construction, and the taxpayers should not have to endure the flying gravel, clouds of lingering dust, streams of litter, reckless and discourteous drivers and overall deterioration of the roads we rely on for our livelihoods.
The issue of Grovena Township roads (479th Avenue in particular) barely being able to sustain local traffic was brought up by this writer at the public hearing for the project, and both the Board of Adjustment and the Wildwood ownership group assured the audience that the one mile stretch of 236th Street from County Road 9A (478th Avenue, Trent-Egan tar) east to 479th Avenue would be given an overhaul and that all vehicles related to dairy business would use this route to access the site both during construction and when the dairy became operational. As of this writing, 236th Street is closed to traffic and still being renovated. Why didn’t local government mandate that road improvements be made before construction of the dairy began? Do the demands of the California-based Wildwood ownership group usurp those of the local taxpaying citizens? When work is completed on 236th Street will all vehicles be required to follow the agreed upon route, thus sparing (however temporarily) the lives of the taxpayers from further disruption? Where do we, the people, seek remedy?
