The staff at the Marshall County Highway Department is doing their best to make dollars stretch when it comes to road work.
Highway Supervisor Jason Peters, Highway Administrator Laurie Baker and the entire department worked hard to get the proper paperwork submitted for testing at the facility in order to be able to house millings from other road projects. Peters said the millings from the State Road 17 resurfacing project, U.S. 31 work and the Plymouth Community School Corporation parking lot paving project will be recycled and used for road paving within the county.
He said the millings the county has received look to be in good shape.
Peters explained that the companies working on the road projects shave about an inch to three inches off the pavement surface with the milling machine and haul the broken pavement to the highway garage. County workers then scoop up the millings with a payloader and put them through a machine to separate the bigger chunks of asphalt from the smaller pieces. The bigger pieces are taken to be ground up while the smaller pieces are placed into the county’s pug mill where oil is added to create a paving compound. That product is then hauled from the highway department to be installed on roads that need to be rehabilitated.
Peters says a milled road can sometimes last longer than a hot mix asphalt road.
“The pugged roads are more of a flexible road as they give,” explained Peters. “A hot mix road gets hard and brittle so if there are any imperfections in the road it cracks just like concrete. Once it cracks water gets down into it and that’s where a lot of your problems start. Berms on the side of the road are like that as well. We’re trying to do a process to get the county bermed in three years which will help tremendously.”
A milled road can also save the county in terms of paving dollars.
“By the time they’re screened and the oil is put back in them, we’re making a product for about $25.70 where a lot of your hot mixes are running anywhere from $48 to $55 a ton.”
Peters told the commissioners Monday that when all of the projects are finished, the county should have 65,000-70,000 ton of millings which equals 50-plus miles of paving. According to the figures Peters gave, the cost of millings the county is producing with its pug mill with 65,000 tons at a rate of $25.70 is $1.67 million. If the county did not make its own recycled product, hot asphalt mix of the same tonnage at a rate of $48 would cost approximately $3.1 million.
Crews are working this week on McQueen Road and they are using the pug mill product. The product will be used where the residents can benefit the most.
Peters hopes that the crew can get through the next three years and then the roads should be in better shape. A lot of the roads were reclaimed this year, but he hopes the process can make for a better road in the future.
