BATH TOWNSHIP ─ Major road work is being completed in Bath Township this summer, thanks to local taxpayers’ approval of a 2.2-mill additional road levy last November.

During the June 21 township meeting, Township Road Supervisor Vern Heizer told the board of trustees that a chip seal road surface treatment had been applied June 20 and June 21 to 14 township roads. Those roads included Wilkerson Road, Cornerstone Trail, Appaloosa Trail, Palomino Drive, Horseman Drive, Lancaster Drive, Axe Drive, Warner Drive, Park Street, Valleyview Drive, North Drive, Short Street, Boxwood Drive and Wylie Drive. According to Heizer, the road contractor would sweep all 14 roads the following week.

He noted that Wilkerson Road was added to the list after the decision was made to apply the chip seal road surface treatment to the road in place of a microsurfacing treatment. He pointed out that the Greene County engineers recommended not applying the microsurfacing treatment to Wilkerson Road until next year.

Heizer speculated that the road-paving contractor would return in the fall to apply the chip seal surface treatment to the lower half of Valleyview Drive and Dogwood Circle, which is currently undergoing construction.

The township road department is also considering applying a fog seal application to the 14 roads in late July or August. The fog seal application would seal any narrow cracks and help preserve the underlying pavement structure.

“We haven’t committed on fog seal yet. We thought about doing the fog seal on all the roads and then next year, come back and do a mastic surface seal over that,” Heizer said. The contractor gave me a ballpark figure of $10,000 for the additional work which is the savings we made by not applying the microsurfacing treatment on Wilkerson.”

The township contracted Miller-Mason Paving Company, a Hillsboro-based company, to pave the township roads. Heizer said he was very pleased with the paving contractor’s performance and quality of work.

“Miller-Mason did a lot better job than the previous contractor. They applied a thicker layer of pavement too,” said Heizer. “I had a crew out there watching them, and they did everything correctly.”

Bath Township Trustee Tom Pitstick stated that he went with Heizer to inspect the chip seal surface treatment that was applied last year to Butternut Drive, Cedarwood Road, and Hickorynut Drive in the Country Acres subdivision.

“For the life of me, I can’t see how Luke (County Deputy Engineer Luke Trubee) can claim that’s the way the roads ought to look because they look terrible,” Pitstick said. “We need to get Geyer (Greene County Engineer Robert Geyer) out there and put some pressure on them.”

Ray Hensley Inc., a Springfield paving contractor, milled Butternut Drive and applied a chip seal surface treatment in 2016 to the three roads. The contracted project was part of a Greene County Engineer’s collective bid and came with a one-year warranty. According to Heizer, the chip seal surface has been coming up, and the aggregate has broken away ever since the project was completed. However, he noted that Hensley is not accepting any responsibility for the failed chip seal pavement and does not intend to repave the three roads.

Heizer said he had one more avenue he wants to explore in regards to the road issue. The company that actually supplies all the asphalt emulsion for Hensley, which is AMI in Columbus, Ohio, has provided Heizer with contact information for a paving inspector.

“AMI said the mixture should be full strength. If the contractor is watering down the mixture, or it is diluted, the inspector will know,” Heizer said.

Pitstick stated that he wanted to be present when the inspector examined the three roads.

“There are big areas where the pavement has come up because it did not have enough emulsion in the mix,” said Pitstick. “The pavement is just gone in some places.”

“If you pull up the stone with a screwdriver, the asphalt emulsion should be three-quarters stone. When Tom and I examined the emulsion, the stone was only on the bottom part of it. It is not even a full quarter,” Heizer added. “When the inspector examines the pavement, he will be able to determine the rave flow of the emulsion.”