Elk County Roads

[Sarah]

SELL THE BGGER ROCKS TO PEOPLE FOR LAND SCAPING!

LOL

Actually, I've done a lot of landscaping with the great big rocks I pick up along side of the road. 

[pepelect]

Is it cheaper to buy gravel and haul it to put on our roads or to have our own quarries?  I think especially out west it would be at least feasible to look at opening a county quarry.  If we did it soon we could sell to the windfarms maybe.  It is over twenty miles one way for some of those roads.   Do we source all the rock from one quarry?  I know we should buy Elk county first but if the road to to flint oak needs rock do we get it from Severy or from Moline?  Isn't there a quarry south of Elk City?  Would that be closer  to the Longton area or do we have a deal with them? 

Why couldn't we haul rock on rail to the grand summit and have a stockpile there?  We could do the same thing to Longton, maybe at the COOP, or Bushton but we would have to build a spur in the county.   I know the railroad doesn't like short hauls but we buy a lot of rock don't we?   Why couldn't we have stockpiles of rock around the county piled by those infamous 18 wheelers. We would have to have a loader at each one but we wouldn't have to have a brand new one.  Maybe we could work out a deal with some of the trucking companies who back haul empty.  Bring sand down and haul rock back.   Maybe we could even get local wheat truck to pickup a load after dumping the commody off at the coop.  If Lafarge uses trucks and rail to deliver rock maybe they are on to something.   

[hhjacobs]

  PEP, I like your idea of a pull behind rock crusher. That would solve two problems, big rocks not in the road, but nice gravel.
Where can one be bought? What can of horsepower are we talking? If it can be powered by a farm tractor, maybe some of the farmers that have a problem with big rocks in there area would pull it a few miles for just FUEL express. I for one would do this in my area.

[Flintauqua]

Just exactly what or who turned the speed button to infinity and then flipped the on switch on Patrick??

A few comments:

Jagged gravel + tire = flat

Smooth gravel + tire = tire wear

Jagged gravel = road that doesn't "pack" well

Smooth gravel, or jagged gravel + fines = road that packs well

When Martin Marietta operated at Moline, they had a tertiary mill that was a roller mill which made excellent road rock.  Every quarry in and around Elk County now only has primary and possibly secondary mills and they are all hammer mills which process rock faster, but leave all the jagged edges.  Result, roads that don't pack down as well and lots and lots of punctures and cut sidewalls.

[Catwoman]

I remember that quarry at Moline...is there some reason why it is permenently shut down?  Couldn't it be purchased from MM and used as a county quarry?  Is that tertiary (sp?) mill still on site?  Could it be part of the purchase?  What problems led to its being shut down?  Are there members of the County crew that have experience there at the Moline quarry site who could bring it back into being?

[Flintauqua]

Several factors led to the closure of the Martin Marietta quarry east of Moline.  Among them:

The distance from the working "face" of the quarry to the "Crusher" was getting ever greater, resulting in more trucking and longer belt conveyers.

The depth of the quality limestone (some of the best aggregate stone in the state) was getting deeper, meaning more dirt and low quality rock to strip off the top.

The deeper depth meant more water to pump out.

Changes in landowner(s) demands as far as royalties and/or rent, both at the working face and the land between the face and the crusher.

And, since the vast majority of the Moline stone was going to Wichita and central Kansas, the horrible and dangerous state of K99 north to Severy caused certain major customers of the quarry to stop buying there because their insurance companies jacked up their rates, if they would insure them at all. 

As to reopening the quarry.  Not likely.  All of the physical plant was relocated or hauled off as scrap.  The lands that comprised the quarry have more and different landowners than they did at time of closure.

The strata of stone that was being quarried by Martin Marietta, along with another poorer quality strata, is still being quarried, at the Durbin or Harshman (or whatever its called) quarry to the south.  But its being processed differently, and in my opinion, the county may or may not be getting the "good" stone that they are paying for.  Regardless of what strata the county is getting, it will never be as good of road gravel as the MM gravel was, because of the type of crusher mill it goes through.

(I am a Durbin, so I hope the "Durbin Police" don't come after me about that last paragraph)

[Flintauqua]

I started a string over in The Good Ole Days about the Moline Quarry for anyone wanting more info.

[Tobina+1]

The road ditches in my area of the county have always been very well mowed; from road to fenceline. 
Now, before you start calling Liz and complaining that she's giving special treatment to those of us to live/work for her dad... the RANCH actually does this themselves.  And pays for it themselves.  It has been a thorn in my husband's side ever since he started working here; why the ranch would pay for the diesel and man-hours to mow every single mile of road ditch that they drive to/from every single pasture they own/rent.  With the rising prices, they've only started doing it once a summer instead of once a month, but still on the ranch's dime.
But, there are 2 ligitimate reasons for this... #1) It would be October before the county got to it, and #2)  It's the ranch's liability if an animal gets out and a Sunday driver hits it because they couldn't see it in the tall road ditches.  I'm not sure if anyone else around the county does this or is concerned (or if this ranch is just covering their butts)?
SO... this brings me to my next point/question (hey PEP can't have all the fun outside the box)... instead of paying single parent county employees to do ALL the work, how about have some sort of plan with the farms/ranches around the county to help out doing some of the work with their own equipment?  Say a discount in taxes based on how many miles of roads they help with?  And it would be on a first come, first serve basis.  Everyone can stand in line around the county shop one morning like waiting in line for ticket sales to put their name on each mile of the county.  And I'm not talking the work it takes some training to do, but at least mowing and spraying and picking up big rocks and reporting issues to the county manager.  Then that would allow the "real" workers to focus on the larger issues in the county, like fixing caved in roads and replacing culverts (plastic or otherwise).  And even assign the road sign duty to the FFA and 4-H clubs; they just have to keep the road signs replaced and in good condition and they can use it for community service hours and the county would pay for the equipment to do it (along with a scholarship fund each year with the money they save).  That will give those kids some accountablility, too; maybe they'll think about all the hard work it takes to put those road signs up before stealing them/knocking them over every Saturday night.
Oh, and the scholarship money would be, of course, towards the PEP RULZ School of Road Grading so that we'll keep the youth in the county and give them a good paying job.

[pepelect]

RULZ scholarship.....I like it.   



I think the small amount of work the entire rural workforce could do in lets say just one weekend would help out the strapped for cash road department.  We talked about having a clean up the town day where you help pick up trash, metal, c/d to beautify the towns.   The county version would be more far reaching.   
I bet the scrap value of the junk in the road ditches alone would pay for the cost of picking it up. If we use landowners to maintain the roads for even lets say a month we would save 8.33% of our road budget.  Let's pick a dry month like August so we don't need the graders going.  I don't know how much diesel that would take but I bet we could buy one more load of rock.  If every one just mowed the road ditch along their own land you would probally pay for the fuel in cans picked up.  Also if we do it now school is coming up in a few weeks.  Get those blind corners taken care of because crashed buses save no one anything.


Just a thought .... not policy......you still have your jobs ......  for now.

[Flintauqua]

Forget the school board, let's make Pat the new superintendent, and county road boss also.  There's got to be some economies of scale or scope to reap there.