LAKEPORT >> The Board of Supervisors discussed a pause in road rehabilitation to reassess best practices are implemented, ensuring durability of repaving and reconstruction projects, during a special meeting at the Board of Supervisors chambers Tuesday.
A proposal to modify an agreement with road builders, Argonaut Construction of Petaluma for roads previously planned to be doubled chipped sealed won unanimous approval by the board. However, some weeks ago some concerns were raised through a variety of sources, about the type of repairs explained Lars Ewing, interim director of Public Works.
“Issues raised for a number of roads in the project led me and others to believe (a need) to pause the project and come to the board to make sure we were moving ahead appropriately,” Ewing said. There were two basic construction methods: pulverizing, grinding up existing road, then reshaping it compacting it and placing a 21/2 to 3-inch layer of asphalt on top of that. Grinding, reshaping, compacting and placing a chip seal as the top surface.
Or most recently, a variation on that approach, using a double chip seal, a gravel and oil mixture for the top surface. “And that’s where the concern came about, the double chip seal,” Ewing told the board. “At that point I paused the contract after the first layer of chips were placed so, we could reevaluate.” Nicholas Engineering Consultants, Dublin, California, were the design experts engaged to provide a well performing, smooth riding pavement in a cost-effective manner. “This was not an issue with construction quality, they’re being an independent third -party inspection source,” Ewing said. “It is more about selection of the double chip seal. The concern led me to talk to (Lake County) Maintenance Staff Roads Superintendent Jim Hale.
He expressed similar concerns with the double chip seal. In some road sections, a leveling course on the road surface and placing a chip seal as a pavement preservation role, which was quite different than grinding up a road reshaping it then placing gravel directly on that and reshaping that, reshaping the road. But there are a variety of applications of chip seal. “After discussions with road crews, it was my recommendation we make a change order to the contract, to put asphalt down,” Ewing explained. The reason was less maintenance interventions and a longer road life span. Still, there was the consideration of the extra cost of asphalt on miles of road that had been chip sealed tallied to be $1.4 million. But there was also cost savings by reducing the second chip seal, reduction in material quantity as well as construction management cost savings. Estimated cost savings was $700,000.
In prior several years there was a quantity of chip seal work. In 2022, a 16-mile stretch was completed in District 3, parts of unincorporated Clearlake and Clearlake Oaks. In 2023, 14 miles in unincorporated Lakeport and Scotts Valley. But in 2024, nothing was planned, anticipating 36 miles of rehab in District 1, District5, Kelseyville and Lower Lake. “We’re looking forward to doing over the next four years, 80 miles of roads to be chip sealed,” Ewing said.
But in discussions with Hale, they wanted to save on the typical $300,000 contractor costs by using Lake County road crews for half of that amount. The current contractor, Argonaut, had the ability to come back and do paving in early September, but it’d be at higher cost because of the work pause. Advising on the project were Nicholas Engineering Consultants, NEC. James Signore is the chief engineer and he and his team examined the soils and materials in the Cobb area. “We had a budget limit as we developed these recommendations with most roads with 2 1/2 to 3-inches of asphalt on top of pulverized material,” Signore said.
This was done under the prior Public Works director Glen March. What could have been done was put a thinner top layer on all roads but to do that would result in a similar situation the county is in now. The roads would fail much quicker so, the idea was to use the 2 1/2 to 3-inch asphalt layer. That was more costly noted another NEC engineer, Andre Jadkowski.. But regarding durability of chip seal versus double chip seal, “is probably not that far off,” Jadkowskil said. Typically, engineers expect to achieve 10 to 15 year life from a double chip seal. But there was the matter of how they would stand up to snowplows used each winter. That depended on how the plows were operated and it is a tough call noted Signore, but an asphalt top layer is 50% more expensive.
“Current budget of 2025-26 includes enough capital appropriations,” he said. “And if not, we have funding to pay for unanticipated occurrences like this. Based on information I have, it’s not going to change anything we have planned for 2026-27.”
Paul Duncan is operations chief for Cal Fire and chief of South Lake County Fire. He expressed some reservations. “I want to express some concerns about the road surfaces, the steep driveways and steep streets,” he said. “We’d need to maintain a minimum of 75,000 pounds on an aggregate base of the roads to support fire equipment. The worry is, with a small amount of asphalt ground up into a road base and compacted on the Upper Summit Drive area, it really looks like dirt with tar over the top of it. I worry in the winter, when we have to roll up fire apparatus over these roads and not having a support aggregate base under there to spread that load out over the chip seal. We’re going to have issues getting fire equipment to emergencies. Also, that area does a lot of snowplow activity, and we cannot control the depth of the snowplow. Putting down a chip seal to me is not the solution.”
The board also expressed reservations, yet after several vote drafts and finally adopting some amendments, they supported the change order to the contract by unanimous vote.
