Costs Going Up?

Print this Article | Send to Colleague

Last night my wife, daughter, and I went to see the University of Texas at Dallas play Concordia University in a basketball game. A young man who graduated from New Braunfels High School with my daughter two years ago is a sophomore on the UT Dallas team. They don't see each other much nowadays since he is in Dallas and my daughter is in Austin attending UT Austin. My wife and I still do quite a bit with his parents since we are all basically empty nesters now so we decided to drive up to Concordia and catch the game. It was a good game that UT Dallas won by a score of 101 to 74. My daughter's friend played roughly half the game and scored six points. His parents told us that was probably his best college game to date.

So, you are now asking yourself, what does any of this have to do with the title of this article? Well the young man's father (David) works for a steel company in the highway heavy industry, and during the pregame warmups our conversation naturally turned to our industry. We discussed how we are personally seeing fuel prices climb and how we have heard that some experts are predicting that they will continue to climb during 2011. David shared with me how steel and concrete prices are climbing and was worried how this would affect our industry. He asked about asphalt prices and the asphalt industry. I explained that while they may be climbing our industry has tools in place that can help mitigate these cost increases.

It was during my explanation that I remembered a very good article in the Winter 2009 Texas Asphalt magazine by Dale Rand, P.E., Director of TxDOT's Flexible Pavements Branch, titled "High Price HMA Going the Way of the Cave Man." I would encourage everyone to read this article if you haven't already done so. It can be found in the archived Texas Asphalt Magazine section of the Texas Asphalt Pavement Association homepage (txhotmix.org) or directly at the following link: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/TAXQ0409/index.php#/18. In this article Mr. Rand touts the economic benefits of Special Provision 341-024, which "was recently approved and will be required for use on all projects beginning with the January 2010 construction letting." He provides some background of past high prices of HMA and highway construction in general. He then proceeds to explain that through the use of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), recycled asphalt shingles (RAS) and substitute binders could "enable suppliers to reduce the cost of HMA by more than $15 per ton in some cases." In Mr. Rand's conclusion, he states "if we can save $10/ton by using RAP, RAS and substitute binders, the overall savings will be between $50 million and $150 million per year."

It is now a year later and Special Provision 341-024 has been required on all projects for the entire year. The ability to use RAP, RAS and substitute binders has been available to contractors for Item 341 for this entire year, as well. I have spent much of my time as the TxAPA Director of Business Relations touting the benefits of Special Provision 341-024 to everyone and anyone who will listen. So besides the money savings opportunities of this special provision, we have learned that the special provision offers engineering and environmental benefits, as well. Some of the potential stiffness issues of mixes that use RAP and RAS that Mr. Rand covered in his Winter 2009 article have been overcome through the use of substitute binders as he also suggested. We have also learned in the past year that another one of the tools contained in Special Provision 341-024, warm-mix asphalt (WMA), also has the ability to help with the relieving some of the stiffness issues in mixes that use RAP and RAS.

So now, a year later when using Special Provision 341-024, contractors are able to produce mixes that are Economical due to the use of RAP, RAS and substitute binders; that have Engineering Benefits of being more elastic and gaining better compaction through the use of substitute binders and WMA; and the mixes are Environmentally Friendly by reducing the demand on virgin materials due to the use of RAP and RAS and through the use of RAP, RAS and WMA the mixes have reduced the amount of green house gases released into the atmosphere during asphalt paving operations.

All in all, it has been a good year for Item 341 due to Special Provision 341-024. It has been so good that a new Special Specification is basically complete for Item 341 and new Special Specifications are being developed for Items 292, 340, 342, 344 and 346 so that they too can reap the same benefits that Item 341 has reaped over the past year.

It is amazing that all of this popped into my mind during a college basketball game.