FRANKFORT Next month, Calloway County will become one of six Kentucky counties to take part in a study to determine the effectiveness of using asphalt made with recycled tires to resurface roads.

In June, Gov. Andy Beshear and Energy and Environment Cabinet (EEC) Secretary Rebecca Goodman announced that Calloway County would receive $56,100 grant for a rubber-modified asphalt project utilizing waste tires. The grant was part of a $482,749 total in grant funding that went to six counties, which also included Hardin ($114,514), Simpson ($85,830), McLean ($85,000), Butler ($101,430) and Green ($39,875) counties.

The news release from the EEC said the grant funding would be used for the application of chip seal or asphalt overlay to county or metro government roads. Chip seal also often called chip-and-seal is a road surface treatment that combines one or more layers of asphalt with one or more layers of fine aggregate and can extend the life of a road by four to eight years. Asphalt overlay is a new layer of asphalt applied over an existing asphalt surface and can extend the road life by seven to 10 years, the EEC said.

On July 15, the Calloway County Fiscal Court voted to accept the grant. The funding comes from the Waste Tire Trust Fund, which receives $2 from every new tire sold in the state. Road Supervisor Joel Stansberry said he thinks the program is a smart way to reuse the rubber from old tires.

(The state) doesnt have a way to get rid of everything, so theyre trying to find new ways to recycle them, Stansberry said. Theyre going to try it with the roads by making an asphalt out of it (to get) rubberized chip-and-seal. It seems like a really good program to recycle tires (to have less) waste and put them back into use. We drive on roads with our tires, so it may make them smoother; I dont know.

Im really thankful that they considered us for the grant. Any little bit we can get to help out our county is an improvement. Thats what we strive for, to make Calloway County better.

Stansberry said he plans to start the project around the middle of September, depending on the weather. The crew will start by using the new material to resurface Samuel Road, which is west of Kirksey and just south of KY 464. After that, workers will use the standard materials on Swift Road, which is north of Kirksey and to the west of Kirksey Road (KY 299).

With Samuel, were going to do a mile of the rubberized chip-and-seal, and thats going to be our test road, Stansberry said. Then were going to do a mile on Swift with the regular chip-and-seal and do a five-year study on it to see which one performed the best.

The plan right now is (to start the project) the middle of September. Thats when were shooting for, but if it rains a lot, we cant do it while its raining. Well do the rubberized (on Samuel first), and I dont know if well have enough time in the same day to do the other, but it will be back-to-back. It should be the next day, at least.

Paul Rister, the magistrate representing the countys 4th District, said he applied for the grant on the countys behalf after Deputy Judge-Executive Gina Winchester told him it was available. He said he had some grant-writing experience from when he used to work for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

It was a short write-up; it involved some math and figuring out what we wanted to do and finding a couple of good roads since its a comparison study, Rister said. I tried to put it all together and got lucky. I probably should have asked to do more, but we got what we got.

Rister said it is a 50/50 grant, which means the grant pays for the mile of rubber-modified asphalt and the county will pay for the mile of regular chip-and-seal. He said the EEC wanted the two roads to be close together and have similar traffic counts, and over the next five years, the state will periodically check on the roads to compare their conditions. He said Trigg County had participated in a similar study several years ago, and Judge-Executive Hollis Alexander had reported good results so far.

There are so many spare tires out there that people are trying to get rid of, so if this is a good process to reuse and recycle tires, then its possibly something for the future if it holds up as good as regular asphalt, Rister said.

Calloway County Judge-Executive Kenny Imes said he was pleased to receive the grant and be involved with the study.

Weve got 720 miles of road here and we cant keep caught up, Imes said. We just dont have the staff or the money to make headway; were not even breaking even. Any time we can get some help (with roads is welcome).

Imes said that with the recycling market having gone downhill in the last few years, it is encouraging any time a new use is found for recycled materials. In this case, it is rubber tires, but he said he had also recently read about how India is using plastic to resurface roads.

Some of them have been down for 20-something years and look just like they did the day (they were paved) other than getting lighter, Imes said. I dont know when the United States is going to look at that as a way of using our plastics as the adhesive, and maybe you (also) use asphalt. We cant experiment because we dont have the equipment or technology here to develop a road, but Indias done it, and as a nation, I think we need to look at more things like that.

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Calloway Road Dept. to take part in rubber-modified asphalt study - Murray Ledger and Times