City Discusses Epic Seal Coat Fail

City Council Tuesday heard an update on 2013’s failed seal coat project, which took place from Sept. 3-14 on some 900,000 square yards of San Angelo streets. Since the work was completed, City staff have fielded numerous complaints on the state of the streets, many of which cited increased dust and loose aggregate just after the project was completed.

The contract was broken down into four areas of the city and cost a little less than $1.7 million. Since its completion, notable problems with loose gravel, patches of varying sizes where the gravel has either been crushed or completely come off, rough spots, and cracks that did not seal properly have been identified.

The City contracted the project out to low-bidder Brannon Paving Company of Victoria, and has identified five plausible causes of the project’s failure, which include asphalt or aggregate not meeting City specifications, an issue with the rate of asphalt application causing the aggregate to not seat properly, the application of too much aggregate, and inclement weather.

City Engineer Karl Bednarz said, “Seal coat—it looks real easy, you put down asphalt, put rock on top of it, but there’s really an art to doing it…some of the material issues…the two materials that we have is asphalt and rock. The asphalt has a lot of specifications that are required of it…viscosity would be one, hardness, polymers.”

Although the City believed the materials met the specifications when they were used, roughly 32 samples from different problem spots and taken from leftover material have been sent off to a lab for testing. According to an estimate received last week, the tests of the samples will cost the City $5,000.

“If it is the fault of the contractor, will he reimburse us for that?” councilman Don Vardeman asked.

“I think that’s something we should look into,” Bednarz responded.

As of yet, it is unclear what costs the City will incur as a result of the poor street job. Starting almost immediately after the project, street sweepers were run frequently to clear loose rock and asphalt from the roads, and all of the material used is a complete loss. There’s also the question of repair on the botched work.

“We do have a warranty clause in the contract and we’re looking into how we can enforce that on our contract,” Bednarz said.

Most council members present shared concerns expressed by the public on the state of the roads following the project.

“Some of them are real bad back there [in Southland],” councilman Rodney Fleming said. “Some of them—we would have been better off not doing it all.”

Silvas echoed Fleming’s concerns, but was also concerned about rectifying the situation. “We’re just being the voice for those people out there that have experienced this bad experience…If a project is done wrong, I would hope that contractor would come back and do it right,” Silvas said. “If it’s wrong, it’s wrong…I think the 1.7 million that came out the taxpayers pockets need to be rectified.”

City staff has tentatively set up a meeting with Brannon Paving for the end of the month, pending test results. They hope to meet a resolution once the cause of the failure is determined.

Seal coat is preventative maintenance procedure to extend roadway life and should ideally be done every seven years, City Engineer Karl Bednarz said. The process seals cracks and prevents water from seeping into the road base, and also helps prevent skidding and hydroplaning.

The seal coat project of 2013 was much larger in scale than previous years, up from the standard 300,000 to 900,000 square yards. In recent years, the seal coating has not been done on the ideal 7-year schedule, however City officials are trying to form a routine for road maintenance. 

The $1.7 million repaving project was announced with much fanfare in Oct. 2013. "The $1.7 million contract to perform the project represented a near-tripling of the $600,000 the City spent on sealcoating last year," the city press release said last year just before the project began.