Property owner expresses concerns of widening road

A plan to widen Coopwood Road to five lanes is worrying property owner Jerry Williams, who owns three homes that will be affected by the traffic. He said he wants a buffer to shield his properties from the sight of the activities of the Project Poppy battery plant.

He said he was told access to the battery plant would be off Highway 72. Now he has learned a second access to the battery plant site will affect quality of life of Coopwood Road residents.

And it will affect his children. He has surveyed off three lots for his kids but with easements coming in, the plant entrance will back up to his back door, he said.

His family has owned 330 acres that has been in his family for generations, since the American Indians, he said.

“We may be disrupted and have no where else to go,” Williams said.

He has reached out to Mississippi Sen. Neil Whaley and got no response, he said.

“I know an industrial road is important, but why are you taking this right up to our back yards?” he asked the Marshall County Board of Supervisors.

District 3 supervisor Keith Taylor said the board of supervisors didn’t get a say in the matter regarding the entrances to the battery plant.

“Nobody on this board knew about it,” he said.

He viewed the Mississippi Department of Transportation’s map to widen the road from a map county engineer Larry Britt showed him.

“Why can’t they stick with the plan off Highway 72 and leave us the devil alone?” Williams asked.

Justin Hall, executive director of the Marshall County Industrial Development Authority, said the county is still waiting on MDOT to finalize the plan which proposed two interchanges and wouldn’t impact Coopwood Road.

“There is a proposed interchange going into the site waiting for a final decision,” he said.

The entrance off 72 could come down through the center of the plant site.

“We understood, eventually, there would be a secondary emergency entrance,” he said.

“How does anybody influence MDOT’s original plan?” Williams asked. “I am struggling with what I’m hearing and from what I’m seeing. It is good you are not coming on the east side (of Coopwood Road). I don’t want to be looking at (it) out my front door.”

Britt said MDOT has been negotiating for two years. The plant will hire 2,000 employees and must have two entrances.

“The Knox Road entrance is probably going to disappear,” county engineer Larry Britt said. “Coopwood is a `J’ turn. We wanted a light.”

District 1 supervisor Charles Terry asked where do residents go to get relief.

“Coopwood Road goes north,” Britt said.

“It will be in the direction somewhere around Curl Road,” Hall said. “They have to provide a secondary access for emergency access.”

“MDOT is not designing it, they are telling us we have to design it on Coopwood,” Britt said.

Taylor said the county didn’t have a lot of input on where the road would be located. He would like to prepare a resolution to move the road over to the west, he said.

“We went 100 feet to the east then we went 400 feet back to the west,” Britt said. “So we did a 500-foot strip. It impacts MDOT’s ability to tie in to 72.”

Hall said planners are trying to find a plan that least impacts landowners and that is still safe.

“Where everything is going, nobody knows yet,” said District 2 supervisor Johnny Walker.

Terry asked if there will be a public hearing once a definite plan has been set.

“I’m trying to determine how do you influence before they have a final plan,” Williams said. “From a Joe Blow perspective, by the time they get the final plan, you can’t influence anything.”

Taylor recommended a resolution to try to influence MDOT’s plan.

“What they say and what they do, we have no influence on it,” Walker said.

“All we are doing is asking or how to put a buffer there to make the best out of a bad situation,” Taylor said.

“How do you get an ear?” Williams asked. “It always falls on deaf ears.” Taylor suggested Williams call highway commissioner John Caldwell. Walker made a motion to prepare a resolution to ask MDOT to consider putting a buffer between the Williams property and Coopwood Road. The motion passed by unanimous vote of the board.