Havre streets survive another winter

Public Works Director Dave Peterson said Friday that better winter weather has allowed the department to get ahead on the annual problem of “spider webbing,” resulting in street cracks and potholes in the community.

“This winter was actually a pretty good winter for us as far as how the streets go, but (this is) what happens when you get snow and then you get a Chinook wind (coming) in. (The weather) warms up the streets and you get your snow melt,” Peterson said.

The milder weather has allowed his department to keep the streets in a little better shape than a normal spring.

Peterson said if streets are not chip or crack sealed, cracks occur and water works its way down. When it gets cold and refreezes then it will create potholes and spider webbing. Traffic running over the top of the streets then adds to the streets’ softness.

“Over time, your asphalt cracks. ... That’s normal, you see it out on the highways when you’re driving. … You get moisture down in those cracks, whether it be from it can be from when you have snow and ice and it warms up, above freezing, that water starts running,” Peterson said 

Peterson said the average lifespan of an asphalt street is about 20 years. He added that the frost in Havre goes down four to five feet in the streets in the winter. Water in the base course, a gravel mixture, can also happen in the summer from rain.

“(As water) freezes, it expands. When it expands, it’ll push up that asphalt in areas where it’s cracked and things like that. That’s where you’ll get a pothole. …  it just pops that asphalt out. You prevent it by crack sealing,” Peterson said.

Peterson then explained the method of prevention. A rubber crack sealing material is put into the cracks. Water can’t get underneath as long the gravel base underneath the asphalt is kept dry. 

“We’ve got an asphalt machine patching machine. … We use an oil and pea gravel mix. We’ll spray the oil down, we’ll put the pea gravel down, spray some more oil, put some more pea gravel down to fill in some of those potholes as opposed to using cold mix or hot mix. … That’s the typical repair that we can do, you know, but those don’t last very long. The only other thing we can do is we can go in and do overlays on streets and things like that,” Peterson said.

He added the reason preventing these cracks is an ongoing issue is due to not having enough money to crack and chip seal continually.

“That’s pretty tough to do. (With) the weather that we have, and the fact that you we don’t have the money to continually crack and chip seal, you know, to keep those cracks from forming, and water getting down (underground.)” Peterson said.

He said the money for the work, about $180,000, comes from Montana’s gas tax along with some money put into street maintenance funds for buying all those materials. The money buys gravel for alleys, sand for winter and hot mix for overlays on streets. The funds also buy the necessary patching machine, patching material, other equipment and pays for labor. 

Peterson said that while street repair is an ongoing process, certain times are more ideal which is partly why this winter was atypical.

“When we go in and do the crack sealing, we do that more in the spring and the fall.  As it gets warmer in the summer, the cracks shrink. You don’t get enough material in it and then when (the cracks expand) when it gets colder, then you don’t have enough material into the cracks. So, we like to do that in the fall and then in the spring while the cracks are a little bit wider,” Peterson said. 

Peterson said the department has been doing some of the repairs now and will continue to work as long as the weather allows for it.

“Once the hot mix plant gets going, we’ll go get material and we’ll be out, you know, patching potholes, you know, fixing areas that we get the spider webbing and things like that. … Like I said, it’s an on an on-call (basis). When we know that they’re running the plant that we can go get material,” Peterson said.

The length of time work takes depends on the size of the road patch. 

“If we know that we’re going to get material, say, you know, next week, we’ll go and we’ll cut those patches out. Typically, it’s not the whole street, it’s just sections. We will barricade those (streets) off, so people can go around them,” Peterson said.

“We do that with our water break holes. So when we have a water break, we might have a 10 by 12 hole in that street throughout the winter. When spring comes around. …. We straight cut, get the material out of them down to the gravel, probably about three inches, and then we can knock a bunch of those out, you know, in a day’s time,” he continued.  

Peterson said, typically, the asphalt plant isn’t run continuously due to a lack of work. 

“Right now, we don’t have any plans for any, you know, full streets to be done other than the work that’s being done on Boulevard Avenue with that waterline project. It’s kind of hit-and-miss, it’s kind of all over town. ... The work that we’re doing now isn’t impacting any traffic where we stopped or any streets will be blocked off for any length of time,” Peterson said.