City of Ironton loans equipment for project

 

CHESAPEAKE — With a little help from a neighboring city, the Village of Chesapeake completed some much needed drain maintenance.

In just a few hours, a major drain on Rockwood Avenue in Chesapeake was cleared thanks to some borrowed equipment from the City of Ironton.

Chesapeake Mayor Dick Gilpin said the village didn’t have the necessary equipment to perform the task and the drain hasn’t been cleaned in at least three years.

“They (Ironton) have a piece of equipment called a Vac-Con, that is used to open drain lines,” Gilpin said. And we’ve had a major plug in a drain line here on Rockwood Aveue and have had a difficult time trying to open it up. The state highway department’s truck had been broken down for three years. We have it opened up maybe twice in the last four years and then the state truck broke down and we haven’t been able to open it up again. We didn’t have the equipment.”

Clogged with debris, the drain, Gilpin said, has been problematic for the village for the last six or seven years and floods nearly every time it rains.

Knowing that standing water on roadways in the winter mean icy roads, Gilpin contacted the City of Ironton and found out the city was equipped for the job.

“(Ironton Mayor) Rich Blankenship was kind enough to offer his services to show that communities partner and help each other,” Gilpin said. “It’s just a way our municipalities partner with each other to help each other out when there is a need.”

Blankenship said loaning the equipment was the neighborly thing to do.

“If they want to borrow some equipment or if we need to borrow equipment, I think that all of us should work together and try to help each other out,” Blankenship said. “Who knows, I may need something tomorrow and get the favor returned. We had one gentleman in that department today and we were able to help them out and I’m sure if I called him (Gilpin) and needed something, I would get the same response. And that’s the way it should be.”

Cleaning the drain on Rockwood Avenue is a preemptive measure until the state can replace the lines, Gilpin said.

“This is part of the project the state and the county have agreed to replace the drain lines on as soon as funding becomes available,” he said. “But we are trying to do as much as we can to drain the water during the inclement weather we are having in the winter so it doesn’t ice up the road. Because if it gets too bad, we might have to shut the road down.

“It has been a persistent headache for everybody for years. We’ve tried to maintain it as best we can but we just don’t have the equipment to do that. We are just happy there is municipality around that had some they could loan to us and help us out with.”