CC Township Association hears drainage update, Sheriff’s Office status, road repair solutions

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

BUCYRUS — All 16 town­ships in Craw­ford County were rep­re­sented at the 2013 County Engi­neer and Town­ship Trustees Meet­ing on March 14. Before the three guest speak­ers addressed the crowd, two impor­tant announce­ments were made: Prices for stone, cement and asphalt have increased this year and esti­mates for any Ohio Pub­lic Works projects next year must be turned in by July 2013.

The first speaker for the meet­ing was Mike Hall, pro­gram coor­di­na­tor at the Craw­ford County Soil and Water Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict. He gave an overview of water drainage. In Craw­ford County, he reported that agri­cul­ture is the num­ber one indus­try. While 67 per­cent of the soil is con­sid­ered “prime for agri­cul­ture,” 79 per­cent of it is clas­si­fied as “some­what poorly drained” or a worse condition.

Hall explained that soil wet­ness is a lim­it­ing fac­tor in agri­cul­ture, which is why drainage is nec­es­sary. Home­own­ers oper­ate under the Rea­son­able Use Doc­trine for water usage on the prop­erty (ponds, grass water­ways, irri­ga­tion, etc.). Through­out the state, there are con­ser­vancy dis­tricts which han­dle drainage issues. Locally, the Soil and Water Con­ser­va­tion Dis­trict works to coop­er­ate with the county and town­ships when doing drainage projects.

Craw­ford County Sher­iff Steve Kent also spoke. Accord­ing to him, the sher­iff is the old­est law enforce­ment office in the United States and Ohio’s first sher­iff was appointed in 1788.

A sher­iff serves a four year term and is the only law enforce­ment office still elected by pop­u­lar vote. All sher­iffs in Ohio are mem­bers of the Buck­eye State Sher­iff Asso­ci­a­tion and wear the same uniform.

In Craw­ford County, there are 13 deputies that patrol 402 square miles and reserve deputies help when needed. the Craw­ford County Sheriff’s Office is the only agency in the state still offer­ing the D.A.R.E. pro­gram, which Kent said they intend to continue.

Among sev­eral other duties, his office is respon­si­ble for main­tain­ing the county jail. The aver­age pop­u­la­tion is 103 inmates, which Kent said puts it at full capac­ity most of the time.

The final speaker that morn­ing was Zach Helm from Strawser Con­struc­tion in Colum­bus. He pre­sented pos­si­bil­i­ties for road paving preservation—or how to make pave­ment last longer while cut­ting costs.

Because local gov­ern­ments have smaller bud­gets and ris­ing costs each year, Helm said any sav­ings on road paving can be a great ben­e­fit. His com­pany works with ODOT and town­ships through­out the state because of the inno­v­a­tive mate­ri­als they offer.

The first process is called “micro­sur­fac­ing,” which actu­ally started in Ger­many. Helm called it the “most eco­nom­i­cal treat­ment” for road preser­va­tion. The mate­r­ial is com­posed of asphalt emul­sion, lime­stone aggre­gate, cement and water.

Helm explained that micro­sur­fac­ing cre­ates an imper­me­able seal and can be applied at cooler tem­per­a­tures, includ­ing dur­ing night­time. It has a fast cure time and improves the fric­tion of the sur­face. Accord­ing to Helm, micro­sur­fac­ing pro­duces a 7–9 year life exten­sion for the road at one-third of the cost.

The com­pany has worked on parts of Inter­state 71 and will mico­sur­face parts of State Route 19 this year.

Another process Helm explained was “black mat micro­sur­fac­ing,” which uses the same mate­r­ial with 50 per­cent trap rock added in to keep the pave­ment look­ing black longer. It also aids in melt­ing snow from the roadway.

Both meth­ods are good for roads that are 4–10 years old with only minor rut­ting and bleed­ing. Helm empha­sized that there needs to be a good sub base and roads with major defi­cien­cies like alli­ga­tor crack­ing and pot­holes are not good can­di­dates for either process, but Strawser Con­struc­tion can also do patch­work for such deficiencies.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Mar 19 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.