One of the major roadblocks in determining the town's policy on plowing private roads has been the process of identifying which roads are private and which ones are not. After months of hard work, that process is more than half complete.

Selectman Judith Whiteside and volunteers took on the task this summer, and she said out of the 952 streets to date in Wareham, 452 have been researched and designated either public or private.

"It's a pile of work but we're getting there," she said.

The researching effort is just one of the steps in trying to straighten out the town's policy on plowing private roads, something that has been unclear for the better part of a year.

Last August, Selectmen discovered that the town had violated Massachusetts law by using public funds to plow private roads. That prompted an April ballot question to allow the town to continue to plow private roads open to public use, which was overwhelmingly passed by voters. But what was originally seen as a continuation and clarification of town policy has become much less clear in the aftermath of the vote.

Town Administrator Derek Sullivan said in June that a policy could be put in place where the responsibility would be in the hands of the private road owners to petition Municipal Maintenance workers to inspect their roads for defects and make sure they meet the necessary standards to have them plowed.

Having the residents petition the town protects the town from paying for the cost of possible damage to plows on unfit roads, according to Sullivan. Last year, the town spent $20,000 on repairs to plows that were damaged.

While Selectmen have debated the merits of such a policy, a major hindrance to any action has been the fact that there were no reliable lists of public and private ways in town.

Whiteside said there are seven lists she is working from between the two fire districts, the police department, the town clerk, the planning board, the town website and the assessors department. Whiteside said she and a volunteer, who has put in over 100 hours, have looked back to 1910 in the town reports in clerk's office.

"It appears it's now going to be a slower process because some of these roads just plain don't exist," said Whiteside. "So it's probably going to come down to getting in a car and actually looking at the road.