By Wayne Gates

Over 100 people in Sterling Township in 32 houses are stranded behind a partially collapsed culvert with no help in sight any time soon.

Heavy rains have washed out the culvert under Pine Valley Drive off of Crosstown Road. The road is on private property and is not maintained by Sterling Township or Brown County.

Because the road is private, the residents who use it must come up with the money to pay for repairs, which will run into the thousands of dollars.

The Brown County Commissioners called an emergency meeting to discuss the situation on Feb. 7. In attendance were Sterling Township Trustee Chairman Todd Richter, Sterling Township Fiscal Officer Marilyn Lawrence, Brown County Prosecutor Zac Corbin, Brown County Emergency Management Director Barbara Davis and Brown County Engineer Todd Cluxton.

After talking about the issue for over an hour, the situation was clear.

“Neither the county or the township can legally spend public money on a private road. That’s the bottom line. We would like to help, but we can’t,” said Brown County Commission President Tony Applegate.

Those facts are cold comfort for Pine Valley resident Robert Donell.

“My wife is in a hospital bed back here. I worry every day about her getting bad and me not being able to get her out. With something like this, what would you do? Might as well just lay there and wait on the Lord.”

Donell said that he and his family found out about the road maintenance issue after his son had already purchased the property.

“After we were here for a couple of years, we found out that we have to take care of the road ourselves,” Donell said. “(The culvert) has holes open up once or twice a year. I’ve dumped so many sacks of concrete down in there that I don’t see how anything could leak around them.”

He said that he and other residents are frustrated with local government.

“We’ve had meeting after meeting with the county and the township. The township has a savings account of over a million dollars and they wouldn’t let us speak at a meeting about using those tax dollars to fix the road,” Donell said.

He added that he would like the township to take over the road and maintain it.

“They take our tax dollars and don’t do anything for us. That’s just the way they treat us back here,” Donnel said.

As far as the residents taking care of the road themselves, Donnel doesn’t see that happening any time soon.

“Nothing has been done. We can’t get most of them back here to contribute money for gravel to fill the potholes. My son, myself and several others contribute, but just a few can’t take care of it all. It doesn’t seem like the others care.”

Mt. Orab Fire Chief Lisa Reeves said that the current situation is not a surprise to anyone familiar with the situation.

“We knew this day was coming. This has been in process for five to seven years. The homeowners have had all that time to try to rectify this situation. Avenues have been presented to them that they have not been able to come to an agreement on.”

Because of the culvert collapse, Reeves said that the Mt. Orab Fire Department will not be able to respond to calls in Pine Valley.

“These houses will not have access to fire and emergency services until the culvert is repaired and meets the requirements to hold our apparatus to safely cross it,” Reeves said.

She said the decision was difficult, but was made with the greater good in mind.

“If the road collapses and we lose a fire truck, we are risking services to the other 16,500 people that we serve by jeopardizing that particular apparatus,” Reeves said.

So what can residents do in the meantime while the road is closed?

“We will respond to them as close as we can get to that culvert. If they can make it out to us, we can certainly help them in an emergency medical situation,” Reeves said.

“We will walk back to wherever we need to go to assess the situation and render aid, but everyone has to understand that that will take additional time.”

Reeves said that if a fire breaks out in one of the homes, it will be a serious situation.

“If we have a fire in that area today, there is no apparatus in the area that can get back there. Whatever is on fire will be a loss,” she said.

Reeves then returned to the idea of regular maintenance of private roads.

“It is in your best interest to make sure that we can access your home in a timely manner when there is an emergency,” she said.

Reeves recommended that during the road closure, anyone with a chronic medical condition or in poor health should try to find another place to stay while the road is closed. She also recommended making sure that smoke detectors and other safety equipment is in working order.

Applegate said that while the county can’t pay to repair the culvert, that doesn’t mean that officials have turned their backs on the residents.

“We’ve been talking about this with multiple agencies since we became aware of the problem. Many phone calls and much discussion has been had about this issue trying to find a solution, but legally, we will not be able to repair this shared driveway.”

Applegate said that measures are now in place to keep a similar situation from developing.

“Regulations were put in place in the early 2000’s specifically to keep situations like this from becoming a problem. Developments can’t be built now that share a private driveway.”

Current regulations require developers to build roads to county specifications before home construction can take place.

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