Residents concerned about bridge on Lick Creek Road
Published 12:00 am Monday, June 17, 2002
Mike Kitchen can feel the earth move under his feet, and he doesn't like it.
As he and his wife, Pat, walk along the bank of Lick Creek running alongside their property, the ground beneath them squishes and gives away.
"Twenty more feet," Mike Kitchen said, "and there goes my house."
The hillside behind their home is slipping into Lick Creek. Their neighbor across Lick Creek Road, Mike Herget, is watching his bridge that allows him access to his home chunk off into the creek.
They say a county-owned bridge that was put in several years ago on Lick Creek Road is the major cause of their problems.
"The bridge was built square with the creek," Herget said. "If the piers had been turned to follow the course of the creek, this wouldn't be happening."
As it is now, the concrete piers of the span are
apparently catching the water as it flows down the hillside and under Lick Creek Road. Some of the water seems to be backing up and eating away at Kitchen's property.
The rest of the water just isn't making the 90-degree turn in front of Herget's property.
It meets up with another creek and dams up just in front of Herget's house and pools there, right at the foundation of Herget's bridge.
"I'm about to lose my bridge," Herget told the Lawrence County Commission Thursday. "I need somebody to look at this and see what can be done about it."
"My father in law told them when they put this bridge in, to angle the piers to follow the flow of the creek, and push it up Lick Creek Road about 20 feet," Kitchen said. "He was an old timer and he lived on this creek for years, and he knew it well. If they had done that, the creek would have flowed right around like it's supposed to."
The county bridge was built in the late 80's or early 90's.
The Commissioners agreed to send a letter to County Engineer David Lynd asking him to look into the matter.
The Ironton Tribune contacted the County Engineer's office about the situation but was advised someone was not available at that time to discuss the matter.
The phone call was not returned by press time. Michael Caldwell/The Ironton Tribune