With more sugar cane harvest underway, you’ll notice more sugar cane truck on the road. One homeowner in St. Landry parish wishes that’s where they’d stay. Dane Burleigh says the trucks are ruining his front yard.
“Mainly the cane trucks. Once they start planting and farming and harvesting. They’re using my property to get around vehicles and any other things and its basically tearing up my property,” Burleigh said.
Burleigh said he covered 750 feet of the ditch in front of his home two years ago. Now, what was a grassy area, is torn apart by tire marks from tractors. Those tracks are about 10 feet off the road.
“Basically it’s ruining my lawnmower. Every time I pass I’m hitting rocks and I’m hitting the dirt. Its also crushing my culverts. So eventually with enough passage on it, it’s going to start to collapse.”
He says the tractors are also preventing his children from playing outside because this has become an almost everyday occurrence.
“On one instant we actually caught a guy who had both axles that were on our property and rolled over our blacktop. He proceeded to almost run me over and I had to get out the way for him to get back.”
Burleigh said he contacted the Sheriff’s office. He says at first, they told him to call the news. Thursday night deputies came to his house to assess the damage. For now, he says he will pay out of pocket to fix the damage.
