New rubber chip sealing to be used on Stiles, Chauvez roads. 

New rubber chip sealing to be used on Stiles, Chauvez roads. 

RIVERTON TOWNSHIP — The Mason County Road Commission has announced that nine miles of Riverton Township roads will be reduced to one lane over the next week, using flag control, to allow for chip sealing. Roads impacted are Chauvez and Stiles roads. 

The road commission has contracted with Pavement Solutions, Inc. and Entech, Inc., who will be using a new material known as rubber chip seal. 

Mary Samuels, manager/director of Mason County Road Commission said the road commission received a scrap tire market development matching grant through Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

“We applied for the Grant which was a 50% cost share to do 20 lane miles of roads this year and received the grant,” Samuels said. “This process uses approximately 290 tires per lane mile, so it is a great way to recycle used tires.

Last year there were 100 lane miles of hot applied rubber chip seal applied to roads in three counties in Michigan with each county being satisfied with the way the roads turned out.  

“The benefit is to extend the life of roads that might otherwise need replaced and reducing the cost of extending the life of the road. The stones used are pre-coated with approximately .5 gallon of liquid asphalt per ton before application.  Currently the pre-coat does not contain rubber.  This is being worked on for future applications. Between.06 and .65 gallon of rubberized asphalt is sprayed on the road surface before the coated stones are applied and rolled in the road surface.

“The process for chip seal we have always used is a thin application of asphalt emulsion at .41 gallon per square yard and 35 pounds per square yard of stone.  A few days later a fog seal is applied to seal the stones in from the top.

We have used this for many years with great success.”

Samuels said the sealing will take four to five days with work scheduled to begin Friday, Aug. 19, unless weather causes a change in scheduling. 

Please consider helping to fund local news. Mason County Press and Oceana County Press are available for free thanks to the generous support of our advertisers and individuals. Three ways to help us: Venmo: @MasonCountyPress; Paypal: MasonCountyPress@gmail.com; Mail a check to PO BOX 21, Scottville, MI 49454. 

This story is copyrighted © 2022, all rights reserved by Media Group 31, LLC, PO Box 21, Scottville, MI 49454. No portion of this story or images may be reproduced in any way, including print or broadcast, without expressed written consent.

As the services of Media Group 31, LLC are news services, the information posted within the sites are archivable for public record and historical posterity. For this reason it is the policy and practice of this company to not delete postings. It is the editor’s discretion to update or edit a story when/if new information becomes available. This may be done by editing the posted story or posting a new “follow-up” story. Media Group 31, LLC or any of its agents have the right to make any changes to this policy. Refer to Use Policy for more information.