Morgan Taylor/ Reporter
OKMULGEE, Oklahoma – In a Muscogee Nation National Council meeting in April, seven pieces of legislation were passed to begin the maintenance overlay project.
This project is funded by the Tribal Transportation Program and will provide maintenance up to 20 miles of roadways across the tribe’s reservation, an annual project in which the tribal program works on roads.
The project started on June 2 in Okfuskee County on a rural road located in Paden.
According to Tom Edwards, a consultant with Cross Timbers Consulting for the Federal Roads Program this part of the project will take about three days to complete before moving to the next roadway.
The project in its entirety will take three months to complete the list of roads included in the 20 mile Maintenance Overlay Project.
The project will include three county roads Rt 1945, 1946 and 1922 in Hughes County; three county roads Rt 142M, 1459, Rt 148K in Okmulgee County; two county roads Rt 1803 and E-1130 (Rt 1821) in McIntosh County; two county roads Rt 1315 and Rt 1322 in Okfuskee County.
Muscogee Nation Secretary of Interior Affairs Jesse Allen claims it’s a combination of entities that work together to determine the needs of maintenance.
“It’s a combination of working with the local city and county governments, the National Council and the (Principal) Chief’s office,” Allen said.
“They all make recommendations and we then go out and evaluate the project,” Edwards said. “It is then checked for inventory, estimated and brought back for improvement.”
Allen claims though these roads are rural, they are due for necessary maintenance.
As of now, there is one road on the list that poses safety hazards for citizens that lies in McIntosh Co. This road is a dirt road that goes east to west off Salem Rd. to Hickory Ground ceremonial grounds.
“In a couple years this road will be a full reconstruction but we are just doing maintenance on it right now,” Edwards said. “Portions of the road are covered in water after every rain and it gets hard to get up and down the road.”
“We are just performing maintenance until we can get a design plan to make it an asphalt road.”
In the last year, the Federal Roads Program has developed a request for services form.
“If anybody has a request on their driveways or roads, we can send them a form, they can fill out the form requesting that we come out to look at the road and evaluate that to estimate the cost and it will go up the chain for approval.”
Citizens with requests can contact MCN Federal Roads Program at: 918-732-7915.
The legislation included TR 21-050, TR 21-052-056, and TR 21-058 and can be viewed at www.mcnnc.com.
