Wilkin County, Minn., finds solution for exhausted sugar-beet route

Steve Neppl, assistant county engineer for Wilkin County, Minn., and Dan Swedlund, maintenance superintendent, were faced with an 8-mile maintenance problem on CSAH 32. The roadway had continuous problems with soft areas and additional gravel had to be added every year. There is a sugar beet piling ground on the west end of the road and for several weeks a year during the harvest season the road takes heavy loads 24 hours a day, creating constant problems.

The county officials turned to Team Laboratory Chemical Corp.’s Base One aggregate base stabilizer to help remedy the continuous problems with maintenance and loss of aggregate. The county hauled aggregate surfacing material onto the entire project and reshaped it to grade using county forces.

Midstate Reclamation Inc. was contracted to reclaim and inject the base stabilizer into the top 4 in. of the new and existing surface material. A pad foot compactor followed for the initial compaction. The surface was shaped with a motor grader and compacted with a rubber-tired roller. Additional surface material was placed on the road, top-dressed with the base stabilizer, shaped, and compacted to finish the project.

“We did not have to add any aggregate for three years. Over the three-year span, the county saved $67,515 on the 8-mile section, or $8,439 per mile on gravel and motor grader costs,” stated Neppl. “The summer of 2012 was the first year we did any re-gaveling . . . 300 tons per mile.”