GRANVILLE — It looks as if Emmett Drive, the popular shortcut from University Town Centre Drive down to Monongahela Boulevard, will remain closed into early August at least.
The road has been blocked at its University Town Centre Drive entrance since Feb. 27 due to a slide on the hillside above the road.
Earlier this month, Granville Mayor Patty Lewis said she was hopeful the shortcut could be reopened, even if temporarily, while the details of a project to address the abandoned mine land at the top of the hill were sorted out.
Before that can happen, however, personnel with the West Virginia DEP’s Office of Abandoned Mine Lands want to come take another look at the site.
That visit is currently set for Aug. 6.
“I was devastated over that, but there’s nothing we can do. I mean, we’re at their mercy. They said they’ve got four or five projects that are ready to go out to bid that have to take priority,” Lewis said. “So, we’ll have that site walk and then we have a two-hour meeting scheduled immediately after the site walk. I’ll have more information then.”
According to Lewis, the former mine property has been on the DEP’s radar for some time.
“The DEP wants it fixed permanently, completely mitigated, and there’s funding there to do that. The property is within the town of Granville. Part of the property where this slide is belongs to the town. There’s some adjacent parcels that they’re not sure yet if they’ll be affected by fixing it. One piece does belong to the division of highways, and another piece belongs to a developer,” Lewis said. “So, until they get up in there and DEP tells us, ‘This is what we want done,’ you know, we’re still really in the early stages of this.”
Lewis said she understands the closure is frustrating, but the town cannot risk reopening the road until she’s been assured the hillside is stable.
“Maybe it seems silly to people that are traveling down from the Town Centre. To the naked eye, it looks like nothing, so it’s like, ‘What’s the big deal?’” she said. “But we are the ones that made the decision to shut it down based on what we were told we needed to do, between our engineer and the DEP, until they can figure out if it’s going to be safe to open while they’re working up there.”
