Best practices of road user maintenance agreements amongst local government agencies in Ohio

Recent innovations in the oil and gas industry have increased horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing activity in Ohio. As of July 2015, 1559 wells were planned or drilled in Ohio and 935 were producing. During its lifetime, each well site can generate up to 3000 additional truck loads. There is also increased truck activity to haul waste water away to injection well sites and to construct compressor stations and pipelines. These activities have resulted in a significant increase to the normal truck traffic volume experienced on the local road and bridge system. Ohio Senate Bill 315 requires oil or gas well operators enter into a Road User Maintenance Agreement (RUMA), or demonstrate a good-faith effort to do so prior to obtaining a drilling permit. By entering into a RUMA the company assumes a contractual obligation for maintaining or improving roads and bridges to mitigate the damage due to the excessive loads. A RUMA template was cooperatively developed by the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT), Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), oil and gas industry representatives, the County Engineer's Association of Ohio (CEAO), and other local transportation officials. As a home rule state, local agencies may modify the template for specific situations, resulting in many variations of the RUMA. Local agencies have also executed RUMAs with other industries such as coal, timber, wind energy, etc. In some instances, RUMAs may have been used in situations where their use is not necessarily appropriate, which has caused confusion among the local agencies and the industry. Although there has been a significant amount of study of the topic, this information is neither widely disseminated nor easily accessible to local officials. This information was collected from agencies in Ohio and elsewhere to find current and proposed practices via a literature search, a survey of counties and townships in Ohio, and interviews of select county engineers and township trustees. These practices are compared and the best presented in a matrix of best practices as well as guidelines and recommendations for local officials in Ohio.