The second public meeting took place for TxDot’s Loop 88 project, on Tuesday night. The route is not officially finalized but is getting close. The public was asked for their comments, and more than a dozen farmers stepped up to the mic to air their grievances that the freeway is going straight through their farmland.
“It’s cutting through our best land,” said farmer, Heath Heinrich. “Its through our peak producing land, our highest averaging land. That’s tough.”
So for a farming community, a project like this, that cuts mostly through farmland, is devastating.
“There were people there saying this land is less developed. I understand there aren’t many houses, but the land is developed in a different way. It takes years to get the right fertilization,” Heinrich said. “You can’t just buy and replace.”
Of the people who made a public comments, many were farmers with long histories of farming in their families. One woman’s land has been in her family for more than a century. Another man owns several farms, almost every one of them affected by loop 88.
“I was shocked to find out they changed the route and moved into the middle of one of my main headquarter farms, which is going to cause a lot of problems for me,” said farmer, Dale Kitchens.
TxDot said it is hard to please everyone but believes loop 88 will be a positive thing in the long run.
“I understand that farming is important to this community, but so our roadways. This will help Lubbock grow,” said TxDot engineer, Kylan Francis.
The plans aren’t officially final but the loop 88 will be built generally along this route, so the affected farmers will have to adjust to a freewway through their crops. Now farmers are trying to change the bridge heights so their farm equipment can pass through.
“Unfortunately now it’s a little too late to change what they proposed so our only options is to make the best of what the proposal is,” Kitchens said.
TxDot hopes to have final plans by the spring. Construction is set to start in October 2020. They will be accepting public comments, which they are required to address in their final report, until August 8th. You can mail your public comments or go to TXDot’s office to submit a comment there.
