MDOT removing trees along I-20

NEWTON October 15, 2008 03:55 pm

— Traveling down Interstate 20 from the Newton/Scott County line to just west of the interchange at Chunky there has been a tremendous amount of clearing in the median.
According to Newton’s Mississippi Department of Transportation Resident Engineer Chris Nail, MDOT has a federal aid project to clean and grub existing vegetation.
“The grubbing limits are variable in width, in general they are 65 feet from the edge of the travel lane,” Nail said. The reason we are doing the work, is one thing, we have hurricane damage trees, some are still dying from Katrina. In addition to that we are taking some of the trees out that may pose a threat if a motorist should run off the road.”
Nail said they are complying with federal policy and federal policy is not necessarily to go 65 feet, that was a District/MDOT decision to do that.
“You have so many tall or dead and dying trees that may fall out into the road and if you have a 75 or 80 foot tall tree and it gets blown down then it is liable to fall in the road,” Nail said. “If that happens maintenance has to go out and clean them out of the road to keep motorists from hitting them and in addition to removing a dangerous or hazardous situation we are relieving a maintenance headache.”
Nail said the project has been lent to Blane and Sons out of Mt. Olive and Joe McGee Construction is doing the clearing with the help of B&B timber.
The cost of project according to Nail is $11,831,000.00 and should be completed by November.
“The contractor contemplates early completion and the amount of clearing we are doing it takes a while,” Nail said. “We are finished with the tree cutting near Chunky and now we have to turn around and back toward Newton.”
Nail said after the trees are cut down then they have to go in and remove the stumps, debris and plant bermuda grass.
“We are trying to leave the red buds, magnolias and dogwoods if we can,” Nail said.
“We haven’t had a lot of complaints by cutting the trees, we don’t like to do it from the environmental aspect, but also realize they could cause a hazard for the traveling public.”
Nail said MDOT had done a lot of clearing on a lot of projects but not one to this extent.

Photos

Trees and vegetation are being cleared on Interstate 20 between Newton and the Chunky interchange by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. The Newton Record