COLRAIN — At least a dozen tires have been impaled after the contractor Northeast Paving mistakenly used metal-ridden gravel to maintain East Colrain Road, Highway Superintendent Scott Sullivan said Monday.
“A lot,” Sullivan said of the numbers of tires that have been pierced while driving along the gravel road. “My niece just got one last week.”
The issue was addressed at Monday’s Selectboard meeting. Selectman Joe Kurland said he hopes work to repair the road will begin in a couple of weeks. He said the start date depends on how quickly a legal agreement between Colrain and Northeast Paving is forged.
“If the lawyers, our lawyer and their lawyer, say, ‘Yeah we agree,’” Kurland said, “and we get it back, and we have no more questions, and we agree, once there’s an actual agreement, they can start.”
The road, which has 39 homes, has been closed for about a month since the issue was first uncovered. However, the residents have no choice but to use the road to leave their homes.
Postmen and gas companies have been barred from using the road for the duration of the closure. When school begins today, buses are not permitted to travel the road, meaning students need to walk to a juncture.
Northeast Paving has said it will repair the road correctly, possibly paving it over instead of re-installing the gravel, and pay residents for damage their vehicles incurred while using the road.
One East Colrain Road resident, Jeff Bache, said two of his tires have been impaled on the road recently. The damage required him to replace all four of his four-wheel drive tires, he said, costing about $1,500. He submitted the incident to Northeast Paving a couple of weeks ago, he said, and had yet to hear back until he asked a representative about the claim at Monday’s Selectboard meeting. The representative told Bache that his claimed was being processed.
Another resident of East Colrain Road, Jim Martin, said he has not incurred a flat tire yet, though he finds large scraps of metal in the road while walking his dog, including a foot-long metal pipe. He uses the road multiple times a day to commute to his job in Sunderland, collect his mail and run other errands, he said.
“It’s just an inconvenience,” Martin said.
Reach Grace Bird at gbird@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 280.