The in basket: Gregg McFarlan says that on July 14 he “had the pleasure of driving to Belfair via Gold Creek Road” and had two thoughts.
“1) Blacktop was recently applied as an overlay, not the normal grind and smooth. Gotta say, it sucks.
“2) Yesterday the county was applying what appeared to be light oil and sand to this roadway. I would understand the normal chip seal. But oil and sand?”
The out basket: Jacques Dean, Kitsap County road superintendent, explains, “The Central Road Shop has completed a series of repairs on Gold Creek in preparation for a chip seal application that will take place within the next couple of weeks.
“They initially ground out areas of significant pavement cracking, replaced the deteriorated asphalt with new, and performed asphalt pre-leveling in a few areas to correct crown, longitudinal settling of the pavement surface, and re-establishment of the pavement edge.
“They more recently returned to the same patches and pre-level areas to apply a thin coat of oil and sand. This is necessary prior to chip sealing to ensure that all voids within the new asphalt areas are sealed. If we do not do this, we lose chip seal oil within the voids of the new asphalt areas, and subsequently do not obtain good capture of the chip seal aggregate when it is applied.”
A chip seal is a form of repaving that involves pouring gravel on a layer of oil, which form an overlay hardened by traffic rolling over it.
Thank you
Seems like the same story we heard from the county about the poor patching on Chico Way two years ago. The promised chip sealing never happened and now our tax dollars are being spent once again to grind up all the poorly done patchwork by the county to be repaved by a contractor. When is the county going to be held accountable for wasting our tax dollars?