By Billy Davis

Some county roads have been patched and re-patched so much they’ve earned a new description, Panola County’s road manager Lygunnah Bean said Monday.

“We added a new category. We call it reclaiming,” Bean told the Board of Supervisors at the Second District meeting in Batesville.

Bean was delivering his monthly road report in which he announced the 2013-2016 Panola County Road Plan, a written plan for scheduling road maintenance in all five county districts.

Roads categorized as “reclaimed” will require extensive work to improve them, Bean later explained to The Panolian.

The reclamation of a road uses a rotary mixer, a machine purchased last year that chops up the current roadway to create a roadbed. The road is then rebuilt with a new layer of rock and oil mix known as DBST, which is a less costly surface than asphalt. 

The road manager told supervisors that Shell Road in District 2 and streets in Crowder, in District 3, will be “reclaimed” this summer.

The road plan also shows District 5 roads Nash, Tony Keating and Waldrup are scheduled for reclaiming.
Other county roads will require shoulder gravel, striping, resealing, or DBST.
 
The four-year road plan shows scheduled improvements to 82 miles of roadway at an approximate cost of  $1.2 million.

Bean said the road department needs approximately $594,000 to pay for the $1 million-plus projects.

The road plan breaks down the maintenance and cost as follows:
•   20 miles of roadwork in District 1 at an approximate cost of $228,010.
•   9.08 miles of roadwork in District 2 at an approximate cost of $257,365.
•   12.76 miles of roadwork in District 3 at an approximate cost of $299,392.
•   31.1 miles of roadway in District 4 at an approximate cost of $209,494.
•   9.2 milies of roadwork in District 5 at an approximate cost of $262,709.

The four-year road plan is required from county governments but can be amended by the Board of Supervisors during the term.