County summer road work on schedule
Branch County Road Commission crews will finish up the chip and seal paving program next week, earlier this year than 2021, according to manager Jay Miller.
"We are ahead of schedule from last year, but we had those storms," Miller said. His crews left paving in August for the two major storms to help remove trees from roads and along the sides of roads.
Commissions crews put down emulsion and then topped with chips of rock on 32.09 miles of primary roads starting in early July. Crews added sand to the rock this year to keep the rock chips from scattering and hitting vehicles. Nine townships contracted with the commission to jointly chip seal another 43.79 miles of secondary roads.
Miller said crews will begin paving the week of Labor Day and "see how much we can get done" before the weather closes the asphalt plant. Asphalt overlays are heavier than the chip and seal spray on emulsion covered with rock.The first repaving project is Lake Road from Wheeler Road to Quimby. The other complete paving projects will finish Batavia Road repaving.
"Those are the main areas," Miller said. "We have looked at Fisher road and Cornell but might not be able to get to that before season's end."
Miller said plans to repave Marshall Road from the Coldwater city limits to Jonesville will wait until 2023.
He added the rebuilt asphalt plant performed well. Local contractors completed work by May 15.
"It went really well from start to finish," Miller said.
The commission spent just under $400,000 to upgrade and fully automate its asphalt plant to produce the road material locally.
Crews used commission-produced asphalt to "paver seal" the roadways planned for seal coating. These areas were where the damage was too much to successfully repair the road just with the seal coating.
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The road commission leased a Swedish gravel crusher for its rock pits this year.
"We've produced over 40,000 tons of gravel," Miller said at three pits the county owns.
The machine will complete work at the central pit off U.S. 12, then move to the Kowalski pit off Block Road between Hatmaker and Kosmerick.
The commission wants to open up a new pit on the property off Wheeler Road at U.S. 12 before winter weather stops work for the season.
"In terms of cost-benefit, there's no question of doing it all in-house," Miller said. "It's beyond cost-efficient. We're exploring the option of keeping it longer, if and only if the price is right."
After the season ends, Miller will have better numbers on the actual costs for rock and asphalt. Rough estimates were half the price of commercial purchases.
Two projects were completed by private contractors with federal-local funding early this summer. River Road from U.S. 12 to Union City Road was reshaped and paved. Ray-Quincy was milled and paved from Grove to the state line.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Reporter: Branch chip and seal completed, paving begins after Labor Day
