Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
| By G. Michael Dobbs Managing Editor CHICOPEE If you're driving on Center Street and wonder what all the brown debris is on the street, relax. It's an experiment and if it's successful it may save the city money one day. Last week Department of Public Works (DPW) officials from Easthampton and Agawam joined Stan Kulig from the Chicopee and representatives from the mayor's office to witness a demonstration of "MulchSeal." A crew from the Peabody-based business sealed the cracks on one lane of Center Street to show how this system is a better way to lengthen the life of asphalt roads. Al Craig is the former superintendent of the Stratford, Conn., DPW who now works for MulchSeal. He told The Chicopee Herald that he started using the system 12 years ago in Connecticut and was impressed by it. One team of workers sprays a refined petroleum emulsion into the cracks and is followed by another crew spreading a layer of sawdust mulch. Cars traveling over the mulch push it into the cracks. Craig said that one a sunny days the emulsion is dry in an hour. On a cool damp day, the process would take three to four hours. Craig said that while the cost is similar to existing crack systems using asphalt emulsions and stone dust, the longevity is three times that of the standard treatment. He said cities save by using the process by not investing in the crack filling equipment that might sit idle a substantial part of the year. He said that MulchSeal teams during a recent job in Illinois did five miles in 2.5 days. He commented the team in Chicopee was going a little slow for the sake of the demonstration. Chicopee DPW Superintendent Stan Kulig said he and his staff will evaluate the system over the winter and will see how it reacts to traffic and plowing. "This is an experiment," he said. |