Dust Control on Alaska's Village and Rural Roads Yields Community Benefits
Clark Milne
DUST CONTROL
on
Alaska’s Village/Rural Roads
yields
Community Benefits
NR Transportation Forum Friday, October 22, 2010
by Clark Milne, PE
AkDOT&PF; Northern Region M&O
Our village roads are too dusty, too often (ADEC & EPA will have to enforce PM-10 regs, if we don’t act to reduce fugitive dust releases?) Noorvik
Many Alaska villages are known to be affected
Airborne Dust has negative impacts:
- • Causes housekeeping issues !
- Obscures visibility on unpaved roadways
- • Interferes with normal plant growth
- Pollutes adjacent waterways
- • Can cause health problems, particularly in infants, the elderly and people with common respiratory problems
Primary/Available Methods to Minimize Road Dust
- Prepare road and pave? (Quite expensive, improbable)
- Apply crushed aggregate surfacing? (supply & funding difficult)
- Apply water to reduce dust? (Frequency? Every day?)
- Apply community speed limits? (Need broad “buy-in”)
- Apply chemical dust palliatives? (Funding? Health risks?)
- Combination of several alternatives from above - ???
DUST CONTROL PRODUCTS
(recent uses at Northern Region sites)
Calcium Chloride (often used on roads & highways) Water !! (not very practical for our traffic, but safe?)
and various “chemical palliatives”
EK-35 (used at 25+ airports, over the last 10 years) Durasoil® (applied @ airports & roads in last 4 years) EnviroKleen (applied @ Eagle; and Kawarek villages) Earth Armour (synthetic liquid – used @ Noorvik, 2010) LSP-400 (used on Kobuk/Shungnak roads with BIA IRR funds) Freedom Binder 400 (used on Mat-Su & NP roads in 2010)
Larger “villages” do watering: Nome, Kotzebue, Bethel, etc.
DOT&PF–managed road work @ Tanana, applying Durasoil® - during Fall 2007
Tanana typical village road: treated August 2007
Kawerak applied EnviroKleen at 19 Western villages
(2006 & 2007)
EnviroKleen was applied on 4 miles of Eagle’s roads: spring 2010; with Denali Commission funding
Participating villages for the summer 2010 dust control “trials”
As specified in the FY09 capital grant: Ambler
- Ambler
- Bethel
- Buckland
- Kiana
- Kotzebue
- Noatak
- Noorvik
- St. Marys
Bethel Buckland Kiana Kotzebue Noatak Noorvik St. Marys
Durasoil applied at Bethel; 2010
“Practise” spraying (with water) at Ambler; 2010
Airports can cause dust releases too !!
Successful application of EK-35: Numam Iqua Airport – 2007
(just one of 48 airports treated with palliatives since 2000)
QUESTIONS?
Clark Milne, PE (907) 451-5285 Alaska DOT & PF – Northern Region clark.milne@alaska.gov
