ARKWRIGHT — Both Miller and Brainard roads are blocked off from heavy vehicles as the Arkwright Town Highway Department is mitigating the problematic terrain.

Arkwright Town Highway Superintendent James Ziemba noted that the roads are mostly dirt and are not accustomed to heavy-truck traffic. The wind farm project construction requires those vehicles, however, they will need to find a new temporary path. The stoppage is expected to last until Tuesday.

“It’s not blocking local traffic,” Ziemba said of the roads. “It’s to keep heavy trucks off of there and right now, we are working with stone to bring the road conditions back to (allow) pass flow for heavy trucks.”

Area resident Tina Graziano believes the issue has gotten out of hand. Someone got stuck in one of the roadways, according to Graziano.

“My concern is that … taxpayer money pays for the maintenance of these public roadways,” Graziano said. “They’re not private driveways for this big wind construction. This is a severe safety issue for these residents and their homes. When you can’t even use these roads in an emergency or have a fire truck or an ambulance come to the rescue, who’s protecting our residents? … They put the residents and taxpayers at risk.”

Ziemba, during the interview with the OBSERVER, argued that the roadways were driveable.

“We are firming them up with heavy stone,” he said. “(We’re) trying to accommodate everybody, including the public, to keep those roads passable for the motoring public. If anybody is (saying) it’s impassable for cars, they’re wrong because I take my car on that road and they are all passable at all times.”

Ziemba added that if residents do see a dump truck on the roadway, it may be for one of two reasons; one being the need to compact the surface and the other is to supply the stone.

Twitter: @Kuczkowski95