Lyon County magistrates passed a resolution Thursday morning requesting action from the state transportation cabinet to recertify a section of highway for extended-weight coal hauling.
Judge/Executive Sara Boyd said a section of U.S. 62 in the county, from the intersection of the Western Kentucky Parkway (near the parkway’s 4-mile marker) to the Lyon/Livingston County border at the Cumberland River crossing, had been listed in the Transportation Cabinet’s record of routes in the Extended Weight Coal Haul Road System.
The system consists of all state-maintained roads and public highways over which more than 50,000 tons of coal or coal by-products are transported each year.
The transportation secretary certifies such roads by official order before Nov. 1 of each year.
The stretch of U.S. 62 had been on the list for several years, Boyd said. In 2003, however, state officials determined that less than 50,000 tons of coal were hauled over that portion of highway.
The road was subsequently decertified and taken out of the extended-weight system, which allows registered coal haulers to carry weights in excess of the maximum weight limits in effect for other vehicles.
In 2004, the judge said, records showed that more than 200,000 tons of coal were hauled on the road.
The transportation cabinet’s records, though, are a year behind, said K.T. Williams, an attorney present at Thursday’s meeting.
Boyd said Williams worked with a Henderson attorney representing the Alliance Coal Company, one of the companies hauling on Lyon County’s stretch of U.S. 62.
The judge said Thursday that an Alliance driver had been stopped by a DOT enforcer for hauling over the road’s weight limit.
The county had, to that point, not known the road had been decertified, Boyd said.
Keeping the road certified also has a direct financial implication for the county.
Haulers participating in the program pay a decal fee to legally carry over a road’s weight limits. The decal fee is based on the size of the truck and number of axles.
According to the state statute outlining the extended weight coal haul system (KRS 177.9771), revenues generated from the decal fees are credited to a special account within the state’s road fund called the “energy recovery road fund.”
Sixty percent of those funds are used by the Department of Highways for construction, maintenance and repair of the state-maintained portion of the roads in the extended weight coal haul road system.
The other 40 percent goes to the fiscal court for construction, maintenance and repair of the county-maintained portion of the roads in the system.
Last year, the county received about $30,000 for maintenance of those coal roads, Boyd said.
The same approximate amount is expected this year, she said.
County Attorney Lindell Choat suggested the county make an inquiry with the state to determine if the decertification process had taken away some of that funding.
With the resolution passed Thursday, Boyd said the highway would likely be recertified in the immediate future.
