Dispute over fee charged to frac sand haulers

State lawmakers are concerned that a road impact fee being charged to frac sand haulers in Wood County unfairly targets a new industry. But the county says sand haulers need to pay for damage caused by their trucks.

Frac sand mining, processing and hauling operations have exploded in the western half of the state. For local governments, that raises concerns about damage to rural roads not designed to handle hundreds of heavy sand trucks a day. So, municipalities are forging agreements with sand haulers to help pay for repairs.

Wood County’s fee structure, however, has raised the eyebrows of Republican state Sen. Terry Moulton and state Rep. Scott Suder. Suder says county officials aren’t treating frac sand haulers fairly, “From my talks with those frac sand company representatives and those individuals who are hauling, it just seems to me that this is a one sided agreement.”

Suder says that’s because a per ton, per mile fee is being forced upon frac sand haulers prior to any negotiations. He says he’s worried companies might be driven away by punitive agreements.

Wood County Board chair Lance Pliml says the upfront fees are being considered because negotiations have been delayed by some companies. He says the county even paid for engineering studies to estimate how much damage sand trucks may cause, “and, when we provided the science and came up with those numbers, we kind of said it’s time we get moving forward with this. We’ve been hauling for a year, we’ve seen the impacts to the road, and we’re going to have that liability, in effect, transferred to the taxpayer.”

Pliml says the fee will be used for the specific roads impacted by frac sand haulers and nothing else and the actual per ton, per mile cost is still be negotiated.