After a 40-minute discussion last week, the Clearwater Township board of supervisors awarded the contract  to Astech Corp. for the township’s first ever chip sealing project.

 

Chip sealing is a lower cost alternative to standard bituminous paving. It uses an oil coating and a 1/2” layer of granite chips to produce a semi-paved surface. The surface typically lasts five years before it needs to be resealed.

 

Last month, the board received quotes to chip seal a one mile section of 125th Street, Hart Ave. and 120th Street, cul de sac on 124th Street, a one mile section of 140th Street and dead end sections of Jarvis and Jenkins Ave.

 

Since the bids for all those road sections combined were above $100,000, Township Attorney Mike Couri said the township could either do a portion of the project, or it would have to solicit sealed bids.

The board decided to get bids with a few options so they could do all or part of the project. So each contractor had two main bids for the two one-mile road sections, and alternate bids for the cul de sac and dead ends that were connected to the main roads.

 

Last week, Supervisor Dan Mol opened  bids from two contractors, Astech and Allied Blacktop.

 

Astech’s total bid was $137,849 compared with Allied Blacktop’s $145,860.

 

Before the board awarded any bids, they allowed members of the public to give their opinions.

 

Blayne Leuthard asked about the board’s decision to spend money chip seal a dead end that was almost never used.

 

“What’s the benefit to the township to doing a dead end cul de sac as opposed to a high traffic road?” he asked.

 

Mol said the township would benefit in reducing maintenance costs for hauling gravel, grading and applying calcium chloride. But he said the board hadn’t decided to do the cul de sacs yet.

 

“That’s why we bid it the way we bid it - so we  don’t have to do them,” he said.

 

Supervisor Bill Langebacher agreed.

 

“If we were to do the main roads, those three dead ends would need to have gravel. It’s kind of a convenience thing. They don’t have to be done anymore,” he said. “We broke up the bids so we can look at the cost and weigh tonight whether it makes sense to do the dead ends or not.”

 

Discussion continued about how chip sealing roads would increase traffic and increase the speed of traffic; whether it was cost-effective to chip seal any roads and whether it made sense to spend money on dead ends.

 

Mol said it was difficult to estimate the cost benefit of chip sealing a cul de sac because with low traffic volumes, the chip seal could last 10 or 15 years instead of the standard five years before resealing is necessary.

 

Leuthard said he still felt the board should justify spending money on the cul de sacs.

 

“I agree that heavy traffic roads should be chip sealed or whatever you have to do to make them better. But when youre talking about a dead end road that has limited traffic, if the cost value is not there to offset the maintenance of the road, then I don’t believe that’s a cost effective solution,” he said. “Show me the numbers that it’s beneficial, then I’ll agree with you.”

 

Supervisor Scott Miller made a motion to chip seal 125th, Hart and 120th Street, plus the attached cul de sac at 124th Street at a cost of $48,305 and $12,413 respectively.

 

“I think we should concentrate on the roads with the highest traffic counts,” he said. “And it wouldn’t make sense to leave the cul de sac way at the ned of that road. We’d be travelling with equipment for a mile to do the cul de sac.”

 

That motion passed, 3-2.

 

After more discussion, Mol made a motion to chip seal 140th Street at $43,805 plus Jarvis and Jenkins Ave. at $24,826.

 

“Some of my reasoning for doing some of these cul de sacs is, we don’t have a baseline (cost) to see if it pays or not,” he said. “We don’t know if we’re going to fix them in five years or 10 years. Here’s a chance. We’ll start out with these two dead ends and we’ll go from there.”

 

There was no second to that motion.

 

Miller made a motion to chip seal 140th Street without the two dead end roads, and that passed.

 

No specific starting date for the project was set yet.