Plowing season means mailboxes take a hit

The Daily Inter Lake

Now that the snowplowing season has arrived, Flathead County officials are preparing for the annual complaints about damaged mailboxes.

During a meeting with the county commissioners on Tuesday, Road Superintendent Charlie Johnson said there are probably 30,000 mailboxes around the valley, and every winter some of them get pushed over or whacked as the plows go by.

"We'll get four or five a day, particularly when the snow is wet and heavy," Johnson said. "It's like throwing a hundred-pound sack at them."

However, if the mailboxes are in the county's road right of way, Johnson said the county isn't responsible for fixing them.

"If we hit them with the plow, we'll replace them, but if they're just knocked over by the snow, they aren't our responsibility," he said.

Johnson also encouraged local residents not to plow their driveways onto or across county roadways, because it usually leaves a line of snow in the road that freezes and turns into "speed bumps."

When road crews see someone doing this, he said, they will ask them to stop.

"Basically, we're just training all the new people in the valley," Johnson said.

On a separate issue, Johnson told the commissioners the Road Department is getting more and more requests from people who want to use the county road right of way for their individual sewer or water lines.

This is particularly the case with some older subdivision, he said. If the lots are too small to meet current county regulations for separating septic drainfields and water wells, people will buy multiple lots.

They will use one for a well, another for a drainfield and run lines down the right of way to connect to the home.

"We have some people tearing up a quarter-mile of right of way," Johnson said.

The county doesn't have a firm policy on this matter, but Johnson said his department is starting to discourage this practice.