‘Bionic soil’ offers hope for dirt rez roads

Posted by Cindy Yurth | Nov 20, 2014 | News |

SAWMILL, Ariz.

If you live on one of the hundreds of dirt roads across the Navajo Nation, you’re probably stocking up for the winter in case your road turns to slippery mush and becomes impassable.

But this winter may just be the turning point for folks like you.

The Navajo Department of Transportation is experimenting with several spray-on road surfaces that turn mushy dirt roads solid.

Several stretches of road two to six miles long throughout the rez have been prepared with three different new materials. So far so good, but “the test will be this winter,” said Priscilla Lee, program projects manager for NDOT.

If they work, these new technologies could be the answer for many of the nation’s worst roads. At a cost of $100,000 per mile, they’re about a tenth the cost of pavement, and there are no environmental consequences.

So far the experiments — in Torreon, Blue Gap and Sawmill — are limited to what NDOT can afford from the fuel excise tax revenues, but if NDOT gets a share of the $554 million settlement with the federal government, they could be expanded, Lee said.