Sudbury puts new road resurfacing technique on pause

Sudbury paving project on pause Greater Sudbury is being criticized for hitting pause on a repaving project for quality control testing. Alana Everson reports.

A pilot project using a new technique to replace asphalt in Sudbury on three area roadways is at a standstill.

The hot-in-place recycling project started earlier this summer with work on part of the Kingsway, between Moonlight and Third Avenue, but the city issued a work stoppage last week.

The city says it's pausing the project while awaiting quality assurance test results.

But officials with Road Surface Recycling, an Ajax-based company, said millions of dollars worth of equipment has been sitting idle in Sudbury for almost a week.

“We are recycling this road 100 per cent,” said Frank Crupi, of Road Surface Recycling.

“We are reusing the material on the road for its intended purpose. Its intended purpose is for the taxpayers to drive on it and we are doing it for about a fifth of the cost of conventional paving. And if you don't do what we are doing here, it's just going to end up in a stockpile somewhere.”

Company officials said they have a quality control lab on site and that material was meeting specification requirements set out by the city contract.

The city confirmed it sends the material to an independent certified lab for quality assurance testing. While some results are almost immediate others can take three to four weeks.

“We are hoping this is just a pause and that everything meets all the expectations and that we can continue with this project,” said David Shelsted with the City of Greater Sudbury.

“As we know, we are currently working on the Kingsway and we are hoping to do this more now and into the future for the city.”

This weekend, the company delivered information letters door-to-door to educate taxpayers about how hot-in-place recycling saves time money and the environment.

“This is very important that this process becomes a factor in and a major contributor to saving the environment from the paving industries perspective of what we do cause as a contamination,” said Mike Crupi, of Road Surface Recycling.

Officials with Road Surface Recycling said the city's legal department sent a cease and desist letter about the distribution of the information letters.

They say they have stopped handing them out for now.