Access road to Town Knob emergency radio antennas needs repairs

Hawkins County commissioners are looking for a solution to maintaining the access road to the Town Knob emergency radio antennas, which has become almost impassible due to erosion.

Legally the county highway department can’t maintain the road because it’s not a county road. Although the county owns the property from Highway 11-W to the antenna site, the county commission doesn’t want to adopt it as a county road because that would give the public access to the county’s emergency antennas.

Hawkins County Emergency Management Agency director Jamie Miller told the commission’s Road Committee last week that the ruts on the Town Knob access road are knee deep in some locations.

Previously the road was graded about once a year by American Tower (Verizon), which has cell towers up there, but it hasn’t been maintained for about three years.

“The way that works, to my understanding, is these cell technicians put the (road maintenance request) into their system, it goes in for approval, and they determine yes or no on maintaining it,” Miller told the committee. “I know it’s been entered into that system multiple times. So far they’ve denied it, and I don’t know if they’re doing that because of manpower, or they’re doing that because they don’t own the property.”

The county’s radio maintenance vendor has reported to Miller that it’s getting to the point they can’t access that site.

Miller added, “We’re at the point we’re going to have to come up with some kind of plan on how we’re going to maintain that access road. There are about two or three places where it’s very steep, and that’s where it always washes out.”

Miller said he will look up the deed to determine if there is any obligation on the part of American Tower to maintain that road as part of the right-of-way agreement. If not that road maintenance will likely become a recurring expense.

“It stays in decent shape for about a year (after being maintained),” Miller said. “We’re at the point now we’ve almost damaged our equipment when we go up there, especially if it’s raining.”

The committee recommended contacting American Tower and request that the road be maintained. If that doesn’t work, the committee suggested that Miller reach out to some contractors for a cost estimate for maintaining the road, and bring that estimate to the Budget Committee.