By Traci Chapman/Staff writer

A crumbling strip of a $1.5 million asphalt overlay undertaken by District 2 Commissioner Don Young grew to about 100 feet last week, and two road construction experts say it is only the beginning.

Local Technical Assistance Program director Douglas Wright and local government specialist Mike Hinkston traveled from their office in Stillwater to the county July 2 to review the 15-mile strip of road. Wright said although he and Hinkston had heard reports of how the road was prepared and overlaid, he felt it was important to review the project in person.

“We had made comments about how to properly prepare a base and how it might not have been done in this case, based on the reports of failures after only a week,” he said. “We felt we needed to go look at the road to give him (Young) a fair shake.”

After reviewing the road in person, Wright said the $1.5 million spent by Young on the overlay project was not a wise investment, and it would become the next commissioner’s problem – a long-term and expensive one.

“Even if you just patch this, which I think would be very problematic, it’s going to be a constant project, and it certainly won’t be cheap,” he said. “The only way to really fix it is to dig all of it up and start over with the correct base. That could cost at least the amount he initially spent, if not more.”

Wright and Hinkston have trained hundreds of “roads scholars” through the LTAP program, a training and technical assistance program designed for government entities that maintain roads at the local level, Hinkston said. Graduates are scattered throughout the state, and Oklahoma and Canadian counties have been among the most active in the program, he said, with the exception of Young’s crew. District 1 Commissioner Phil Carson and his full-time employees have all graduated from the program, and District 3 Commissioner Grant Hedrick’s crew are road scholars, although he has not completed the class. Some of the District 2 crew graduated from the program under former County Commissioner Monty Keely.

Oklahoma LTAP is one of 58 national programs funded by the Federal Highway Administration and the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.

Young said in June he believed the LTAP training is “irrelevant” for county commissioners.

“They are teaching things that are for state highways, not county roads,” he said. “Their methods aren’t cost-effective. I choose to spend the residents’ money wisely.”

Questions arose in June about the 15-mile asphalt overlay project stretching from the south side of the El Reno Regional Airport, running south to Union City and west from the airpark to Heaston. At that time, records showed Young spent more than $1.7 million since April 1 on maintenance and operations, more than twice the sum he expended the entire nine months prior to that time.

Young said the bulk of those monies were for the road repair. Records showed $1.5 million was paid to Schwartz Asphalt since April 30, the company completing the asphalt overlay. Young’s road crews completed the preparation work, he said.

Wright and Hinkston drove the road for more than an hour, stopping to review the biggest failure reported to date – a “30-foot” section, according to Young, weakened and broken by a heavy truck traveling on the asphalt too soon after the overlay was completed.

That “30-foot” buckling section had extended to more than 100 feet by July 2, and Hinkston said “about 200 feet” of minor cracks extended away from the main failure.

“Look at this and the failure moving away and to the center of the road,” he said. “This is a major failure, and it’s a concern because there hasn’t even been any inclement weather since the overlay was completed.”

“Looks like bad base to me,” said Wright. “Don’s assertion that the asphalt was driven on “too soon” is ridiculous. Asphalt of that thickness is not structural. It would have failed regardless of how long it had been in place with the base in the condition it is in.”

The problems with the project construction were many, Wright said, from an improper base to inadequate drainage and the fact that Young’s crews were just that day mowing long grass down along the side of the road, instead of clearing out the brush before the overlay was laid.

Young’s crews were mowing along the roadway Thursday, and although drainage ditches lined much of the 15-mile strip, many were not cleaned out, clogged with weeds and debris.

“You’re not going to get drainage with stuff like that,” Wright said, pointing to a tinhorn barely visible through brush. “That’s a situation where water is going to be standing on the road, breaking it down. There’s also a problem with the base when the grass was not mowed and cleared away before the overlay was laid.

“It’s like building a house without a foundation on just plain dirt,” Wright said. “If you don’t do it right, it’s not going to last. That’s what we train our roads scholars.”

Wright and Hinkston said the economical and proper way to prepare the road was “nowhere near the way it was done” by Young – filling in deep holes with a mixture of rock and concrete and overlaying over the filled-in holes and “inadequate” base damaged by years of heavy use.

“The first step would have been really inexpensive – about $1,000 – for a core sample so the engineers could see what they were dealing with,” Hinkston said.

Although taking core samples is not routine, Wright and Hinkston said they recommend taking a sample to determine what the base, and the earth lying under it, is made of.

“You could have a lot of clay in the base or other materials, and it’s best to know what you have so you know how to stabilize it,” Wright said.

Even without taking a core sample, Wright and Hinkston said there were “established steps” that Young should have taken to prepare the base. After reviewing a section of the road in El Reno city limits, where Young stopped the project, the men said the base was “simply unacceptable.”

“This needed to be torn up, ground down and stabilized with a material like kiln dust or fly ash,” Hinkston said. “Once that was done, then it should be compacted and only then the overlay could be put on.”

The result would be a shorter but more long-lasting stretch of improvements, Wright said.

“He wouldn’t have been able to do 15 miles for the same price if he did it right, but he would have had a fairly good stretch of an excellent road that would have lasted a long time.”

Young said in June his 18 years experience as a county commissioner gave him enough insight to know the best way to complete the job, and LTAP didn’t have his knowledge.

“Engineers tell you to tear it up and re-lay the whole thing. I don’t agree with that. We dug out the soft places, filled and stabilized the base, then we’ll lay asphalt and seal it,” he said. “I choose to save the residents’ money and let Mother Nature do the packing of our road materials. She does a better job of packing that down than I do.”

Young leveled charges at Carson and Hedrick about comments they made on proper base preparation last week, saying his fellow commissioners were “politically motivated” in their criticisms. Young renewed those allegations at the commissioners regular meeting Monday.

“I can show you roads I built all over this county in 2006 that only have one patch,” he said. “I would appreciate if it you would mind your own business.”

Wright said the condition of the $1.5 million project spoke for itself.

“I guess the best way I can put it is to tell you that one of the things we try to do in our class is show projects that have failed and how not to do it. This is definitely an example of that,” he said.