Loggers, cement trucks and waste haulers all weigh heavy on county roads and bridges, many of which aren’t designed to hold the weight of these heavy haulers.

Roads used by these trucks have damaged public roads and companies have ignored requests to follow specific, county-approved routes, according to Rush Mayatt, the Lauderdale County road manager.

“It’s evident we need to do something,” Mayatt told supervisors during a board meeting Tuesday. “We don’t need to be paying for that.”

Mayatt named Russell-Topton and Will-Garrett as roads damaged specifically by log truck companies, but noted that any heavy haulers can damage roadways.

“It’s not just loggers – it’s concrete trucks, dump trucks – there’s plenty of others that do damage to the road,” Mayatt said. 

Mayatt asked supervisors previously to pass a heavy hauling ordinance but said it had “fallen to the wayside.” Supervisors discussed creating a law enforcement position earlier this month that would specifically ticket illegal dumping, using funds from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality to pay for the salary. They also proposed adding heavy hauling regulations to the duties of the enforcement officer. 

Mayatt told supervisors Tuesday that Chris Lafferty, the county administrator, had drafted a description for the position but said that an ordinance needed to be passed before the county could apply for the MDEQ grant.

“Right now, I get a call and I can go out and say something to them but I can’t write a ticket,” Mayatt said. “So I’ve got to call a deputy and wait for one to arrive and try to keep (the heavy hauler) there… I’ve had several instances where we have a conversation before they begin working and we tell them a route to take. And when we leave they take a different route because it’s shorter or they can avoid scales or whatever.”

Lafferty echoed this sentiment to supervisors.

“They asked Rush for the opportunity to regulate themselves and Rush created some space for them to police themselves,” Lafferty told supervisors. “It looks like they haven’t.” 

Mayatt said he would put together an estimated cost for fixing the road damage and send a bill to the companies involved, which he declined to name, that damaged the named roads.

“I waste a lot of time and energy doing this when I could be doing other things,” Mayatt said. “We can’t continue to keep getting run over.”