Huge Facility Proposed in Miles-Mereta Cotton Gin Merger Concerns County Official

MERETA, TX — Miles Cooperative Gin Company and Mereta Cooperative Gin Company recently agreed to merge and build a single cotton gin possibly in Tom Green County.  

Cotton Gin Cooperatives are owned by members and the members of the two facilities recently voted for the merger.  The Miles Coop Gin is located north of the City of Miles on FM 1692 in Runnels County. The Mereta Coop Gin is located in the City of Mereta on FM 1692 in Tom Green County.  

Precinct One County Commissioner Ralph Hoelscher recently said he is concerned about how County roads will be affected if the new cotton gin is built on land along a county-maintained road.  

One possible location for the new gin is at the intersection of FM 380 and Fourth Road east of Veribest.  FM 380 is a state maintained highway but Fourth Road is a county road.

The most direct route to that location from cotton fields in the Miles area would bring trucks down FM 1692 to Arrington Road and then Fourth Road.  

Commissioner Hoelscher said the county doesn’t have enough money to maintain the roads now and the increased traffic by trucks driving cotton bales to the new gin along Fourth Road and Arrington Road, both county roads, would damage the roads beyond what the county could afford to repair.   

On Tuesday, Hoelscher asked the Tom Green County Commissioner’s Court to send a letter to the governor, the comptroller, all members of the Texas Legislature and all 254 counties in Texas requesting an increase in state funding for lateral roads.  

Hoelscher said the State of Texas began sending money to counties in 1995 for lateral road maintenance.  He said Tom Green County this year received $23,500 from the state and that’s not enough to cover the 300 miles of county roads in Precinct One and Precinct Three which share a road and bridge department.

Hoelscher said he wants to ask the governor and comptroller to increase lateral road funding by 20 times the current level for all counties.  That would increase Tom Green County’s state funding from $23,500 to $470,000.

The Court declined to support Hoelscher’s request to send letters requesting the increase in funding, but County Judge Steve Floyd said he would support a measure requesting Texas Association of Counties representative Jim Allison help the county write a letter addressing road funding for Texas counties.  

Judge Floyd said one option is to request an increase in the fee counties receive from vehicle registration.  Floyd said the county receives $10 out of each vehicle registration in the county and that amount hasn’t increased since 1989.