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Prairie Twp. residents upset about slurry seal
(by Sean Lehosit, Westside Editor - September 27, 2011)
Residents in Prairie Township are upset about roadwork completed in September when a contractor applied slurry seal to Tamara Avenue and Elnora Drive.
According to Road Superintendent Dave McAninch, the township first tried slurry seal in 2009 and has not seen any problems with the application over the last two years.
Residents at the Sept. 21 Prairie Township Board of Trustees meeting said the roads were rough to ride on and felt uneven.
McAninch said he sees no problem with the roads. He added, at first Elnora Street felt rougher than Tamara Avenue, but since it was initially applied three to four weeks ago it has smoothed out.
Prairie Township Trustee Steve Kennedy said in two years of using this application, by all indicators, the road flattens and becomes smoother over time. Kennedy said the township takes pride in the work that is accomplished on the roads.
“We have alleys that we take better care of then the city of Columbus takes care of some of their roads. We take it serious,” Kennedy said.
Slurry seal is a cost effective alternate to milling a road and filling it with new asphalt. Slurry is designed to protect the surface of the road from being penetrated by water.
“It’s basically for roads that are not to the point where they are totally deteriorated and needs to be resurfaced. It adds life to the road,” McAninch said.
According to McAninch, the road department budget is restrictive in a time of funding cuts, but the roads must be maintained. The cost to apply slurry seal was estimated to be 42 percent less than the cost of laying down new asphalt.
The cost to slurry seal Tamara Avenue was about $26,000 and Elnora Street was around $13,000 to complete. Both projects cost less than estimates made by the Franklin County Engineers Office.
“For the first time this year we had several complaints from residents on Tamara Avenue and on Elnora Drive,” McAninch said. “I addressed them the best I could, obviously people are still upset.”
McAninch said he is happy to come out and visit any right-of-ways residents are concerned about on Tamara Avenue or Elnora Street. Slurry seal calls for an application of a quarter inch to five-sixteenths of an inch.
“If there’s something we can do and it’s in the right-of-way, then we’ll do it,” McAninch said.
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