BENTONVILLE -- Benton County's Road Department is about halfway through its paving plan despite a spate of bad weather and the increased cost of material, a county official said.
Jay Frasier, the administrator who oversees the department, and chief county engineer Josh Beam updated the Quorum Court on June 18 about the work.
The county will likely finish almost 29 miles of asphalt overlay and fog seal work from its Plan A schedule this year. The county also is expected to complete almost 21 miles of crack sealing work. The county has finished about 20 miles of work so far, according to information Frasier presented to the justices of the peace.
Fourteen of the 20 paving projects on Plan A are District No. 1, which covers just more than 200 square miles and includes the Beaver Lake area.
Anything not completed from Plan A would move to the top of next year's list, Frasier said.
He would like to get to some of the 12½ miles of improvements on the Plan B list, but that idea remains in limbo because of the increasing cost of asphalt.
Asphalt has increased from $42.50 per ton to $55.36 per ton so far this year -- about 30 percent, Frasier said. Justice of the Peace Pat Adams, the liaison to the Road Department, said the cost of oil is the main reason for the price increase. Also, the availability of sand has been a problem, Adams and Frasier said. Oil and sand are used to make asphalt, they said.
Weather also has impacted how much work the department has been able to accomplish. As of last week, Benton County had received 5.56 inches of rain this month, according to the National Weather Service in Tulsa, Okla. The county got just a little over 1 inch of rain in June 2018.
"It's been a challenging year, weather-wise, but we've been fortunate compared to the other parts of the state," County Judge Barry Moehring said. Parts of the state along the Arkansas River had flooding in the past few weeks.
The county has finished an estimated 5 miles of red dirt improvements and about 15 miles of improved roads with gravel, according to Frasier's presentation to the Quorum Court's Committee of the Whole.
About half of the county's 1,500 miles of road are paved, Moehring said.
Adams said he regularly drives county roads to look at projects the Road Department is working on. That includes more than inspecting where asphalt is being put down. He said he looks at culverts, bridges, low-water crossings and where brush cutting is being done.
Asphalt work is a just a fraction of what the Road Department does, Moehring said.
The department did the dirt work on the expanded Sheriff's Office shooting range on Arkansas 72 West, a project 98% complete, Frasier told the committee. The Road Department also did the cement parking lot at the new Coroner's Office on Melissa Drive in Bentonville.
Road graders are on their fourth rotation on county roads, covering an estimated 3,468 miles; brush cutters are on a second rotation and have completed 2,800 miles, according to the presentation. The department also has completed 15 concrete projects and more than 50 culvert projects, according to data.
The county also has filled around 500 potholes and will contract work to fill another 350 to 400, according to Frasier's report.
The county also has worked to shift Plentywood Road slightly to the east so it aligns with Spanker Road. Plentywood is south of West McNelly Road, and Spanker Road is north of McNelly. The county plans to add a left-turn lane on Plentywood onto McNelly, Beam said. The only work left to do on that project is to pave the area and stripe Plentywood, he said.
As part of the same project, the county improved the sight line on West McNelly just east of its intersection with Spanker and Plentywood by removing some of the hillside next to Plentywood, Beam said. That work is complete, he said.
Work started after the new Spanker Creek bridge near that intersection opened in May.
The county is in the third year of a road assessment plan Moehring started when he took office.
"The overall philosophy is to fix the system we have," he said. "We'll keep going as long as the weather allows. It could go deep into the fall."
General News on 06/26/2019