SR-051573-4A"f,~~y .._ __.
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CITY OF SANTA MQNICA
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April. 30, 1973 ~ ~`"`"f -.f-~
Perry Scott, City Manager ,!~' ~' ,,, ,,
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Doug McAteer, City Engineer ~
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Annual Street Repair Program ~""
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We budget funds annually for the repair and maintenance of our
streets. This work is performed under private contracts. Part of these
funds are made available through the County's "Aid to Cities Gas Tax
Program°„ These funds can only be expended on our "Select System of
Streets", which is about 75 miles of our more important streets, The
amount of these funds has been in the magnitude of $70,000- $80,000
annually. City funds in the approxin~a,te amount of $120,000 have also
been budgeted annually for street repair an other than "Select System
Streets" -- also by contract work. Therefore, approximately $200,000 is
budgeted annually for this type of work to be performed by outside
contractors.
Our last contract for this type of work was completed on September
8, 1971, at a contract cost of $308,370. This work consisted essentially
of constructing about seven miles of concrete gutters; one mile af, con~-
cx•ete curbs; .1,000 concrete driveways; and about ten miles of street
resurfacing by means of the so-called 01Heater--Remix Method", To my
klzowwledge, we did not receive aizy complaints relative to the pavement
burning machines used,
The "Heater-l~cmix." method consists essentia•11y of:
lY After concr=ate guti,e.~~s have been con.stxu ;;ted. (or in tha auc~-1~
thy, z•.treet to a~ resu~:f'accd ryas ca~acrete C;,zt;tersj a '"PAT~'i.i~iGlv1' tiEA T.PJR'~
mac.l~ine i.s uti.lized t;a heat t"rye asphalt pavement 3.n areas where the
Date: April 30, 1973
Subject: Annual Street Repair Program
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pavement is too high and must be lowered. (The asphalt pavement should
be at least 3/4 of an inch lower than the adjacent concrete, in order
to make a proper "butt" join), Directly in back of the heater-machine
is a "grader" machine that utilizes a sharp blade to scrape and remove
the heated asphalt pavement,
2, After all the required asphalt pavement areas are prepared,
as mentioned in "1" above, the "Heater-Remix" method begins, The same
pavement heater-machine mentioned above begins heating the pavement in
about 10-foot-vaide longitudinal stripse Attached to the bacY. of this
heater-machine are a series of "teeth" that scarify the heated pavement,
3. Immediately behind the burning machine is an oil truck equipped
with spray nozzles which spray a thin layer of liquid asphalt over the
fla Immediately in back of the oil truck is a "Barber-Greene" type
asphalt paving machine, which places a layer of approximately 3/4 inch of
nevr asphalt concrete aver the scarified and oiled pavement,
5e Immediately after the new asphalt pavement is placed, heavy
rolling equipment begins rolling and °ironing" the new pavement,
6. After a period of about tyro or three hours the street can be
opened to traffic.
For some years, the above mentioned pavement heating-machines have
been in violation of the County's Air. Pollution Contral District's (APCD)
rules and regulations, but have beery permitted to operate under a
variance procedureo In July of 1872, the APCD stated that all req;aests
for variances would be denieda
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Date: April 30, 1973
Subject: Annual Street Repair Program
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Mr. Robert L. Chass, Air Pollution Control officer, recently
stated:"The question of using pavement heaters and creating unaccept-
able amounts of air pollution versus the use of other non-polluting
means which might take longer and be more costly is x•eally the issue
and I must insist that the need for clean air is the paramount
interest of the citizens of Los Angeles County",
Due to the phase-out of the pavement heaters, I have not as yet
programmed a city-wide street resurfacing project for 1971-72 or
1972-73.
The use of the Heater-Remix process has many advantages over most
alternate methods -- except for the fact that it does produce some
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newer burning machines are by no means. the black-smoke-producing
"monsters" of about ten years ago. The older machines used an oil type
burning fuel. The later models use a liquid propane gas fuel The
machines were in violation if they produced a pollutant of black smoke
when measured by means of the "Ringelman" test, of a number of one or
more, for more than three cumulative minutes in a one-hour period. The
vast majority of times the heater-machines were not an violation, but
if the machine. went over an oily or "fat" spot in the pavement, the
machine would produce a density of smoke more than "11° (on the Ringelrruan
chart) for a short period of time until that condition could be correcteda
Tn any event, the pavement, burning; machines, at the present time,
are not permitted to be used ands therefore, other alternative solutions
must be foundm
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<•` Date: April 30, 1973
~' Subject: Annual Street Repair Program
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Prior to mentioning various alternatives, 1 would like to give
several advantages of the outlawed burning machines:
a. Tn my opinion,' the greatest asset was in the capability of
being able to remove a thin layer of asphalt pavement, For instance,
if the thickness of an existing asphalt street was six inches and it
was desired, for some reason, to remove the top one inch, it was a
simple matter to heat the pavement and scrape off the top inch. The
cost for this type of removal is about $0.06 per square foot. The
only alternative to this method is to completely remave the six inches
of pavement and reconstruct the area with five inches of new pavement
at a, cost of about $0,50 per square foot -- about 8 times more than the
burning process,
b. With the heating and scarifying process, new pavement thick-
nesses as small as one-half an inch can be laid, This one-half inch
is extremely well-banded with the existing pavement,
c. The scarifying process reduces many of the small irregularities
in the existing pavement surface by "knocking-off" the high spots and
filling in the low spots,
d. It is a very fast process and does not require the street
being torn up and unusable for long periods of time.
e. Costs are much less, Depending an the particular instance,
the ratio could be bettaeen 2 and 10 times less costly than alternate
methods.
I would like to preface the following remarks by stating that T
am by no means an expert in the i'ield of air pollution, but it does
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Date: April 30, 1973 Page 5
Subject: Annual Street Repair Program
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appear reasonable to me that when one compares the total air pollutant
problem of the Heater-Remix method versus the alternate method of
reconstruction -- the alternate method creates mox•e total pollutants
to the atmosphere, but does so legally.
For example, let us, take a typical street -- 1 block long (600');
30 feet wide; the pavement being six inches thick; and has existing
2-foot-wide concrete gutters. Let us assume that in order to join the
gutters it is necessary to remove 3/4 inch of asphalt pavement at the
gutter edge and varying to 0 inches at 7 feet from the gutter edge,
and let us use the contract prices used on the last project.
A - HEATER-RENIx
Cost: 1200 1.f. Header Cutting ~ 0.38 ....~....... $ 456.00
Heater Remixing = 1733 s.y. @ 0.05 ........ 80.00
hspnalL raving = yu 'cons ~ 11.3u ......... l,uiy.uu
Total ......... $ 1,563.00
Construction Time: 4 hours
As.r Pollution Problems: The pavement burning machine would
probably be in operation for about 4 hours. Of this 4 hours,
it might be in violation of the APCD rules for 15 minutes.
B - RECONSTRUCTION METEiOD
Cost: A. C. Rernovals
14' x 600' x 6" = 155 c.y. c 12,00 ........ $ 1,860.00
New Asphalt Pavement
14' x 600' x b" = 315 tons
12' x 600' x 1° - 45 tons
36o tone ~ 11.30 ........ ~a.yo68.o0
Total ...®..... $ 5,928.00
Time: The street probably would have to be completely closed
to traf`z'ic for a per5.od cf ozxe week.
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April 30, 1973 Page 6
Annual Street Repair Program
ENVIRONP4ENTAL PROBLEMS:
(1) Heavy equipment must be used to break up the existing
pavement,
(2) Heavy equipment must .be used to load the .pavement removals
onto trucks, This causes some dust and noise problems,
(3) Trucks must be used to haul the removed material to the
County dump. T would estimate 30 truck-trips. to the dump which take
approximately one hour for a round-tripo
(~-) This also is using valuable dump capacities, Heavy equipment
is also used at the dump site to bury this material.
(5) The additional 270 tons of asphalt pavement requires that
many more tons of our natural resources be used, which includes some
additional smog-producing equippment, This 270 tons would also include
about 27 tons of liquid asphalt,
(6) '_rize additional 270 tons of asphalt pavement must be mixed
at a plant, vrhich undoubtedly creates some air pollutants, and then
must be transported to the job site in.tx•ucks,
Of course, there are other alternatives other than major recon-
struction, such as an asphalt pavement "overlay" o£ approximately lz inch
thickness, or a "slurry-seal" application,, These types of alternatives
are very practical on some streets _ but may not be practical on other
streets,
In the very near future, 1 am going to propose a street resurfacing
program that will probably consist cf a combiratior. of all three pro-
cesses: (1) Reconstruction, (2) Overlays, and (3} Slurry-sealing,
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April 30,.1973
Annual Street Repair Program
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On April 27, 1973, I had a telephone conversation with a
representative of apavement-burning machine company, and he informed
me that within possibly two or three months a new type of pavement
removal machine - other than the heating type - will be available.
I am hopeful, at that time, that we can continue with our past type
of street resurfacing program and not pollute the air in doing so.
In summary, I would like to say that in my opinion:
A. Pavement-burning machines produce less air pollutants than
some other types of alternatives.
B. One should look at the overall consequences when discussing
a certain environmental type problem.
C. Without the availability of a pavement removal type machine,
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times greater, which either is going to increase the amount of dollars
needed, or is going to decrease the rrumber of streets to be repaired.
D, b'ortunately, the majority of our streets are in fair to good
condition, but vrithaut a good repair program that status will not
last for long.
L. I am hopeful that an acceptable type of pavement removal
machine will become available in the near future.
F. There are many different types of situations that I have not
attempted to expl.a9xr in this report. Practically every street has a
different problem to be considered.
Date: April 30, 1973 Page ,8
Subject: Annual Street Repair Program ~
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Go I realize there will be many unanswered questions pertain-
ing to the subject in question, and I shall appreciate the opportunity
to try and explain them in detail9 at your convenience.
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'"DOUG McATEER
City Engineer
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