Grand Isle to meet on road repair

GRAND ISLE – Residents will decide next week if the town will borrow up to $75,000 to repair Morneault Road, a 2.5-mile-long connector road between Route 1 and Lavertu Road to Long Lake in Madawaska.

The condition of Morneault Road has been a topic of discussion for years. The town has attempted to return ownership to the state, but the state has refused.

The latest effort involves up to $75,000 of local money to match a possible $200,000 grant from the Community Development Block Grant Program.

The proposal is being made after engineers completed a $10,000 study of the road.

“This is the most important meeting we’ve ever had on Morneault Road,” First Selectman Robert Dunbar said Wednesday. “Of all the meetings we’ve had over the years, this is the meeting to come to.

“This is the closest we’ve ever been to getting anything done on Morneault road since at least 1998,” Dunbar said. “We have a good chance of getting up to $200,000.”

The $10,000 engineering look at the project was done by Wright Pierce Engineers. Dunbar said the study was needed to apply for grant funding.

Like studies of the past, it shows that reconstruction of Morneault Road would cost between $275,000 and $600,000.

It all depends on how much work is done. The road needs ditching, new culverts, reclamation of the dilapidated roadbed, and paving.

Ditching has been estimated to cost $20,000 a mile, culverts are $2,000 each, grinding and compacting of the present hot top could cost $35,000 a mile, and paving is estimated to cost between $40,000 and $110,000 a mile, depending on what kind of material is used.

The road was state-owned until the early 1980s when ownership reverted to the town. The town gets $16,000 a year from the state to maintain Morneault Road and two other state aid roads in town.

The road has lapsed into disrepair. Last year, the town failed in its latest effort to have the state take the road back. Those efforts have been ongoing since 1995.

It has been estimated that 80 percent of the traffic on the town-owned road is by non-residents taking a shortcut from Route 1 to Long Lake.

The special town meeting will be held at the Grand Isle town office meeting room at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 11.