ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Belmont County Board of Commissioners addressed several summer projects during their meeting Wednesday.

Guests included Richard Hord of Martins Ferry, who reminded all that Ohio Rep. Jack Cera, D-Bellaire, will be featured at a town hall meeting at 5:30 p.m. May 15 at the Martins Ferry Elks Club.

“Everyone’s welcome. Everyone’s invited,” Hord said.

He also commended last week’s job fair and inquired when more information would be available regarding the possibility of an incoming ethane cracker plant in the Shadyside area.

Commissioner J.P. Dutton said PTT Global Chemical, the possible incoming company, has the necessary permits in place and said the commissioners hope to hear news of the final plant design soon.

“They’re still working with two engineering companies to do the design of the plant — both global companies,” Dutton said. “Both of these companies have been doing their work at tandem. At some point, PTT will have to select one to do the final design.”

He added that there is no expected date to hear further news.

“They’re doing their due diligence, which we greatly appreciate. It’s great to see the time and consideration they’re putting into it,” Dutton said.

The commissioners also addressed questions about overcrowding at the county jail. In past years, it has been necessary to house inmates in other counties. Commissioner Mark Thomas said overcrowding continues to be an issue and the board is exploring options, but the out-of-county housing will not be repeated.

“We’re not spending any money. We don’t have the money to spend to house them in other places,” he said.

The commissioners also expressed positive expectations for the oil and gas industry, as illustrated by the strong attendance at the Ohio Valley Oil and Gas Expo this week and the enthusiastic participation of many related businesses.

Port Authority Director Larry Merry also credited the team at MPR transportation for their work in spearheading the organization of the event.

Meanwhile, County Engineer Terry Lively mentioned upcoming summer projects.

“We’ve got our typical road oil for dust control project we’ve just opened bids on,” he said, adding that the apparent low bidder is Young Blood Paving, who handled the project last year. Lively adding that the need persists on various gravel roads throughout the county. “It doesn’t cover nearly as much as we would like it to cover. It’s for dust control, and we’ll go out on a gravel road and instead of oiling the whole road we’ll just oil in front of people’s residences to hold the dust down in front of their house … I wish we could oil the whole road, but we haven’t done that in forever. The road superintendents use their own discretion to decide which roads and how much footage of oil gets put down on each road. That’s what they have to work with, and they know they have to use what they’ve got and that’s all they’ve got.”

Lively pointed out that road use maintenance agreements have allowed further projects. He said this summer will see a project with Rover Pipeline to upgrade a bridge.

“Down in the very southeast corner of the county there’s a road called Cat’s Run, County Road 56, and we have a bridge down there that’s in pretty bad shape that they wanted to use, and I told them the condition of the bridge and they wouldn’t be able to run their normal equipment over it, and so we worked out an agreement — an addendum to their existing RUMA that will allow them to use the bridge, and they way they’re going to do that is build a temporary jumper bridge overtop of our bridge that’s there now, and that temporary jumper bridge are going to hold the loads they’re going to need to put over it. Once they’re done with the temporary bridge, they’re going to remove that and replace our current bridge with a new bridge. So we’re getting a new bridge out of this.”

Lively also cited some negotiations with other counties.

“It requires a detour, and the only place we could put the detour is through Monroe County, so I had to get cooperation from the Monroe County engineer as well as some of their township trustees and our trustees as well. We had three townships and two counties sign off on this agreement.”

Bids have also been opened for another bridge rehabilitation project for the Newcastle Bridge on County Road 92 off of State Route 148. Lively said most of the work would be done by county employees, but some of the detailed work will be bid out.