By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Hyperinflation is driving up prices at gas pumps and grocery stores in Levy County and across the nation, but it’s also jacking up the cost of resurfacing county roads with asphalt.
Asphalt is manufactured from crude oil. The cost of asphalt has skyrocketed in response to high oil prices, but whoever thought it would go this high.
Levy County Commissioners learned at their last commission meeting that the Florida Department of Transportation is willing to resurface only half of County Road 347 between U.S. 27A and U.S. 19 near Chiefland.
The reason is the cost of asphalt. The road resurfacing project is funded by a state grant from DOT. Most of the county’s resurfacing projects are state-funded.
“We know that construction costs have soared due to the cost of asphalt. We will not be able to get the materials. The cost of the project has been cut in half,” Levy County Road Department Administrative Coordinator Alice LaLonde said at the Feb. 7 board meeting.
County May Pave Half
Commission Chairman Matt Brooks received commission backing to instruct LaLonde and Road Department Construction Superintendent Jesse Durrance to develop a cost estimate for resurfacing and widening the second half of the 347 with county tax dollars.
Commissioners have been trying to resurface and widen the road for a couple of years but have run into a variety of issues with DOT. The early problem was the ditch wetlands next to the concrete bridge culvert at about the halfway point in the road.
The wetlands issues haven’t gone away, but apparently, the road can be resurfaced and widened up to the bridge culvert. The county is proposing to resurface and widen the road on the other side of the bridge. LaLonde said the county originally planned to widen the road two feet but with asphalt costs soaring they will widen it only a foot to save money. CR 347 is a very narrow-paved road.
“It’s up to the board’s discretion if they want to do this. I’ve been holding out for cheaper asphalt. I haven’t given it to our procurement coordinator to put out for bids for this reason,” LaLonde said.
Commissioner Rock Meeks suggested possibly turning down the state grant and starting over again with a new grant application to pay the full cost of the project, but LaLonde said if that happens the project would likely go back to the bottom of the DOT’s five-year road priority list for Levy County.
The entire project has been engineered and designed. Commissioner John Meeks wondered if the engineering and design would remain valid if the second half of the road is constructed by the county. County staff seemed to think the engineering and design could be legally used by the county if the second half of the project was started soon.
Soaring Asphalt Costs Statewide
Dalton Kurtz, a project manager for North Florida Professional Services, said the company is doing work for Levy County on part of County Road 347 and CR 345. He said the problem of soaring asphalt costs is a statewide issue.
“It’s like this across the counties on multiple roadway projects,” he said. “They were given amounts and the cost of construction materials skyrocketed.”
He said the company is working on a road in Baker County that is a mile and a half long but has enough funding to resurface only 8-tenths of a mile. A 2 mile-road in Columbia County will get 1 mile resurfaced.
He said the county may run into red tape if it decides to take over the resurfacing of the second half of County Road 347.
“As far as paying for jobs, you can do an entire set of plans and have a contractor stop at a certain point,” he said. “It somewhat opens up a can of worms. I’m not saying it’s not possible to get a specific set of plans for a specific length of road. DOT pays part of it, the county pays part of it, but it’s just another layer you have to go through,” Kurtz said.
“The Drain” Under CR 347
The bridge culvert under CR 347 serves a unique purpose. When heavy rains hit the county, the underground water levels rise and a river is formed in Levyville on the east side of the bridge. The river, more than 150 feet- wide in some places, roars through previously dry land in Levyville and heads west through the CR 347 bridge culvert and under a U.S. 19 bridge to Long Pond on the south edge of Chiefland. Locals call the river, “The Drain.”
The original engineers for Levy County and for the Florida Department of Transportation apparently knew about the nameless river and made provisions by building bridges over the bed of the river. The concrete bridge culvert under CR 347 is about 7 feet tall and 20 feet wide. Years sometimes pass when the river remains invisible below the surface of the ground in Levyville. When aquifer levels rise to a certain point, large depressions in the soil fill with water and connect to form the river known as “The Drain.”
The Nature Conservancy at one point expressed an interest in buying the Levyville property from the late Dennis Andrews and preserving it for conservation purposes, but Andrews had other plans. He deeded the property to his five adult children. Levyville, a property of more than 3,000 acres populated old growth forest, pockets of cypress heads, and a plantation of mature cypress trees planted by Andrews is divided equally among his five adult children.
Levyville Original County Seat
The Levyville property was the original site of the county seat before politics resulted in the county seat being moved to Bronson, according to Andrews. Several times Andrews showed this reporter the original courthouse site, but he said a contractor he knew took most of the remaining bricks without his permission.
Levyville is also the site of a meteor impact in the 1800s. Andrews showed this reporter the impact zone and allowed the reporter to dig up a 10-pound piece of the meteor to keep during one of our many trips riding around the property. Iron from the meteor was reportedly used by Confederate troops to make bullets during the Civil War.
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Board of County Commission Regular Meeting February 7, 2023; Posted February 19, 2023
