The RM of Corman Park will be ready to tackle road improvements and maintenance in the spring.
Corman Park Council voted at its December 6 meeting to award a contract to Lafarge Aggregates to supply 40,200 cubic meters of traffic gravel and seal coat aggregate for the municipality’s 2022 gravel program.
The contract was awarded following a competitive tender process that saw four companies submit bids. Lafarge’s submission was the lowest at $1,533,958.86.
The gravel will be stockpiled at six separate locations in the RM.
Each year, Corman Park contracts with private operators to crush an average of 40,000 cubic meters of aggregate for its annual road program.
The municipality, one of the largest in the province in terms of geographic area, has a total of over 1,640 kilometers (1,019 miles) of roads. The vast majority, at 1,448 kilometers (900 miles) is gravel surface.
Every year public works crews in the RM apply new gravel to approximately 322 kilometers (200 miles) of those roadways.
According to the RM website, the gravel program prioritizes locations for gravel application based on outstanding projects from previous years, ratepayer requests, the year that gravel was last applied and the existing gravel condition of the road relative to the type and amount of traffic.
The RM council also approved a contract for Finning Canada to supply 650 grader blades for Corman Park graders at a cost of $57,479.50. Finning submitted the lowest of six quotes in a competitive bid process.
The RM of Corman Park has a grader fleet consisting of 14 graders. Twelve of those graders are assigned to specific ‘zones’, while one grader is used for road construction projects and the other is a backup in case one of the twelve regular graders breaks down.
The RM council is currently in the midst of deliberations for its 2022 overall budget. Final decisions on its overall capital and operating revenues and expenses, as well as potential tax increases for ratepayers, are slated to be made at its December 20 meeting.
The RM’s proposed 2022-2031 capital plan is currently under discussion at the council table as part of the budget deliberations.
According to this ten-year capital plan, the average grader in Corman Park logs approximately 1,400 hours annually. That’s considerably more than the normal operating range of 1,000 hours used by other rural municipalities in Saskatchewan.
“This is primarily due to the high volume of roads that are serviced within the RM,” according to the budget document. “The average useful life of a grader is 15,000 hours, maintenance costs and repairs start to increase once it logs around 8,000 hours. Therefore, it is recommended that graders are replaced every five years to maximize trade-in value and avoid major repair costs.”
Five-year warranties on three of the RM’s graders have expired, or are due to expire, in the next few months. Each of those machines is also very close to the 8,000 hours mark. The municipality’s public works department is seeking three new graders in next year’s budget as part of an overall ten-year capital plan.
New graders each cost in the neighbourhood of $400,000; while the trade-in value of five-year-old graders is in the $100,000 range.
If the tentative ten-year capital plan is approved by council, the RM is projected to invest approximately $3.2 million annually on main corridor and primary road projects.