New speed limit for gravel roads in Virginia goes into effect July 1

The Bath Board of Supervisors met Tuesday night and heard a quarterly update from Susan Hammond, a Residency Administrator from VDOT.  She reported on a change in a law that’s going into effect on July 1.  Beginning that day, all gravel roads in Virginia will have a speed limit of 35 miles per hour.  The new 35mph speed limit will not be posted, but it will apply to all gravel roads.   Hammond also reported that this past winter had twenty nine official snow events that VDOT responded to.  She said this spring VDOT has been focusing on getting back into the swing of normal routine maintenance.  She said they will be starting the new fiscal year on July 1 behind schedule on the amount of maintenance they want to have done up to that point.  Hammond said that crews are almost finished with the first cut on mowing on primary and secondary routes.  She also said recent heavy rains have done damage and there are ditch and shoulder issues and problems with pipes.  She said some of those problems have been repaired several times.    

In other business, the board unanimously approved two overhead easement agreements with BARC Electric for the installation of trash compactors.  At the West Warm Springs site one roll off dumpster will be replaced with a compactor.  And a compactor will be added at the transfer station site.  Supervisor Claire Collins said that having compactors is something Republic Services, who handles solid waste for the county, had recommended in order to reduce the amount of trucking required to haul trash to landfills.  She also said there have been problems with bears lately especially at the West Warm Springs site and that area is going to be cleaned up.  Collins said there is a transition with the new solid waste process in the county but, when all is said and done,  it’s not going to be as significant a change as people think. 

And Roy Burns was appointed to fill the Warm Springs District seat on the Industrial Development Authority.  And the board also approved moving Industrial Development Authority member Jamie Gwin from the Cedar Creek District seat to an at-large seat.  Gwin is relocating within the county, but out of that district, and he wanted to continue serving on the IDA.  As part of that change, IDA member Gloria Lindsay was moved from an at-large seat to the Cedar Creek District seat. 

And Supervisor Claire Collins was reappointed to the Shenandoah Valley Partnership. 

And the board approved a fireworks permit for Saturday, June 21 at 817 Peery Hollow Road between 9:15 and 10:15. 

And the board also set it’s next Town Hall meeting for Tuesday July 1, at 7pm in room 115 of the courthouse. 

 

Story By

Bonnie Ralston

Bonnie Ralston is the Assistant Station Coordinator at WVLS and a Highland County news reporter. She began volunteering at Allegheny Mountain Radio in the fall of 2005. In 2006 she became an AMR employee and worked in Bath County for eight years as the WCHG Station Coordinator and then as the news reporter there. She began working in radio while in college and has stayed connected to radio, in one way or another, for more than thirty years. She grew up in Staunton, Virginia, while spending a lot of time on her family’s farm in Deerfield, Virginia. She enjoys spending time outside, watching old TV shows and movies and tending to her chickens.

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