Harsh winter hammers county roads

Flathead County roads are in bad shape this spring, the county’s public works director told commissioners Tuesday.

“I’ve never seen it this bad in my career,” Dave Prunty responded when Commissioner Dale Lauman asked him if there is “an extraordinary amount of road breakup this year.”

“Our patch crews are out now,” Prunty said. “And we have a slug of patch work to do, like everyone in Montana does.”

Last week Prunty attended a meeting of county officials from throughout the state and he said everyone reported extremely poor road conditions following a harsh winter.

Flathead County was already registering 3 inches above normal moisture totals when winter hit last November, Prunty said. Heavy snow and rain for months, coupled with freezing and thawing cycles, results in frost heaves and potholes in roads, he said.

The county has the use of a velocity patching machine for a few weeks this spring in a demonstration project by a company which would like to sell such a machine to the county, Prunty said. I

t’s an effective machine, he said, and is “the way patch repair is going.” However, he said, a new machine costs about $70,000. It might be possible to buy a used machine for less, he said.

The velocity machine uses compressed air to clean out a pothole, heats and dries the spot and then fills in the hole from its reservoir containing hot oil and gravel chips.

“It beats cold mix,” Prunty said.

While $70,000 isn’t a small amount, Lauman urged that a cost analysis be done to determine how much it costs to make repeat repairs to potholes fixed with cold mix. “After two weeks it’s kicking out and we’re out there doing it over and over,” Lauman said.

“It’ll be a challenging season,” Lauman told Prunty, “but I think you’re up for it.”

Besides patching holes in roads, road department workers are cleaning roads with street sweepers and brooms, Prunty said.

“We’re out moving material off the roads,” he said. “We’re thinking snow season is over, we certainly hope it is.”

Prunty briefed commissioners on other road department business, too.

County residents responded well to the county’s cost-share program for applying dust-control product on gravel roads. Prunty has applications for 42 miles of road this year, up from 29 miles when the project was implemented last year.

“It’s great,” Prunty said. “We’ve got a lot of roads we’ll fix.”

Lauman speculated the program has become more popular for a few reasons — the fact the county is continuing it for a third year and the realization by many property owners that the county won’t just “come out and do it all.”

The county has budgeted $100,000 for its share of the work with an equal amount being paid by private landowners who applied for the program. With recent increases in gas prices, Prunty said it’s possible bids will come in higher than the $200,000 budgeted for the work.

In that case, the commissioners would either have to decide to budget more money or some stretches of road would have to be eliminated.

County Administrative Office Mike Pence warned commissioners he would recommend the county ante up additional money if that scenario is presented to them.

“In my mind, there’s no question about it,” Pence said. “If we have people willing to pay half the costs, we should do it,” Pence said.

Lauman agreed.

Commissioners agreed to advertise for bids to do the dust-control work. The timetable calls for work starting in June and wrapping up around July 1.

Employees in the road department are also keeping tabs on roads where weight load limits have been implemented, Prunty said, to make sure no roads are damaged or to determine if any limits need changing.

Reporter Shelley Ridenour may be reached at 758-4439 or by email at sridenour@dailyinterlake.com.