No Gates on Planned Highway Issue for Ind. Firefighters

Plans for a 22-mile stretch of I-69 between its interchanges with Ind. 45 in Greene County and Ind. 37 in Monroe County show no emergency access gates, and two Monroe County fire departments are debating how best to fill that gap.

Both departments have asked state and federal officials to add access gates to the road plans, but the departments disagree on the best location for an access. Van Buren Fire Department wants a gate where Burch Road intersects with the highway, and Indian Creek Firefighters want it at Rockport Road.

Center Township Fire Department, with a station on Ind. 45 near Little Cincinnati in Greene County, would provide first responders from the west, and Perry-Clear Creek Fire Fighters, with a station at 3595 S. Kennedy Drive, could serve the eastern segment.

But the 22 miles in between is a long stretch with no emergency access, say representatives of both fire departments.

There will be a county line interchange and a new Ind. 445 spur to the northwest between the Ind. 45 and Ind. 37 interchanges, but that route doesn't provide easy access to any fire station.

Monroe County highway engineer Bill Wiliams said a subcommittee of the Bloomington/Monroe County Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee hosted several meetings last fall between the fire departments, the Federal Highway Administration and the Indiana Department of Transportation. He said the highway administration is studying a proposal to add an access gate at Burch Road. Indian Creek Firefighters say a gate at Rockport Road makes more sense.

Ultimately, it will be up to federal highway administrator Robert Tally to decide whether and where an access gate is added to the plan.

Van Buren view

Van Buren Township Trustee Rita Barrow said the township's fire station in Stanford is just a mile from where I-69 will cross Burch Road, and a gate there would provide the firefighters easy access to emergencies on the highway.

"We will be directly in the middle," Barrow said.

An access gate there "will give us an opportunity to get onto I-69 a lot faster than what it would if we had to run to 37 or to Greene County to get on," she said.

Van Buren fire chief Chuck Hill noted that his department has full-time, paid firefighters on duty 24-7, as does Perry-Clear Creek Firefighters. Center Township Fire Department and Indian Creek Firefighters have one paid staff member on duty during business hours on weekdays, but they are volunteer departments.

"They have to get volunteers in there before they can run," Hill said.

Hill's department includes 11 full-time firefighters, 21 part-time firefighters and eight volunteers, he said.

"We would be on the highway in less than five minutes" if Burch Road gets an access gate, Hill said.

Indian Creek view

By far, most of the 22-mile stretch of I-69 in Monroe County is in Indian Creek Township, with only a fraction of a mile through Van Buren.

"It's our township. It's our responsibility to cover it," said Steven Staggs, chief of Indian Creek Firefighters. "If an emergency occurs in our township, we should be called first."

He said a gate at Rockport Road makes more sense because it is the midpoint on the 22-mile stretch, and a gate at Rockport Road would be cheap and easy to add to the plan.

"If access is located at Burch Road, Indian Creek will still be obliged to respond," he said, but it will take 15 minutes longer to get to the gate.

Clark Sorensen, a member of Indian Creek Firefighters who participated in discussions with the MPO, said representatives of Indian Creek got into the access gate discussion late, after the decision was made to request an access gate at Burch Road.

He said he hopes state and federal highway planners will study the situation carefully, and project response times by the two departments for accidents on I-69.

Sorensen says Rockport Road is much more centrally located than Burch Road.

"It boils down to who has faster access," he said. "Look at a map."

Staggs said that even though the fire station is staffed by one firefighter during business hours on weekdays, the firefighters are on call 24-7, and are as well trained as professional firefighters.

"Our firefighters have all the training as professional firefighters," said Dee Owens, president of Indian Creek Firefighters.

She said the rural department has had no need to staff its station 24-7, but when I-69 comes through, "we will set it up that way. Absolutely."

Indian Creek Township doesn't have the tax base to be able to afford a full-time, professional fire department, Owens said, but volunteer firefighters will be required to sign up to staff the station round the clock.

"If INDOT does a study and realizes an access road at Rockport makes more sense, we'd have a year or two to beef up our fire station," Staggs said.

Not a fire fight

While the two fire departments are arm wrestling for the location of an access gate, they're not fighting over it. More important to both is that there is a gate somewhere on the stretch of interstate.

They both say their primary concern is to provide the quickest response to emergencies on I-69, and they both believe that their department can do that -- if a gate is added where each wants it.

Neither is aware of any financial benefit to the department in getting their way; they don't get funded for providing emergency service along a new interstate.

Both the Indian Creek and Van Buren fire departments say they are obliged to respond to emergencies on I-69 because of a countywide mutual aid agreement they both have signed, as has Center Township Fire Department in Greene County.

"We take care of each other all the way around," Owens said. "It's for the good of whoever is on that highway, who probably won't be from our township."

"There's absolutely no reason for two fire departments to be in some sort of a fighting match. There's no reason for that," Owens said. "We both want people protected, and that's what comes first."

Copyright 2012 - Herald-Times, Bloomington, Ind.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service