CANTON, New York (WWNY) – Canton officials are voicing concerns about roads being damaged after 180,000 pounds of concrete beams were transported across the village and dropped off at the Canton Central School District.
Tuesday afternoon, two trucks carrying 92-foot-long concrete beams moved down State Street.
The beams, 7 in all, will hold up the ceiling of Canton Central School’s new pool, which is part of the district’s $48 million capital project.
“I do know they came from Vermont and they were able to come up State Street. All the stakeholders are on the same page to make this happen and I’m sure everyone is appreciative of that,” said Scott Sanderson, director of operations, Canton Central School District.
But not everyone agrees that all stakeholders were notified. Canton Mayor Michael Dalton says haulers never notified the village about where they were going to transport the concrete beams.
“We were never consulted about the fact that this special permit was requested and was going to be issued that included traveling over village streets. There’s a requirement that the DOT has a special permit of this nature, the hauler has to have permission. That was not done,” he said.
Dalton is concerned about State Street itself. It’s under construction right now and waiting to be paved.
As the trucks rolled through Tuesday, Dalton worried raised manholes and sewer grates could get damaged by the weight of the truck and beam. Knowing more beams will be delivered, the village has pushed back the paving schedule so the trucks don’t damage the fresh asphalt.
“Our plans were to pave that before school started. Now with this heavy load coming through, we’ve had to push back paving which will take us into the start of the school year and that’s going to interrupt traffic on State Street for the beginning of school,” said Dalton.
The state Department of Transportation issued permits for the work to be done but points out it’s up to the hauler to determine the trucks’ route.
We reached out to the hauler to ask if they tried contacting the village. We didn’t hear back.
The next beams will roll through the village on August 24 and 30.
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