HomeMy Public PortalAbout2022-8-8 Ltr to City re Dust Abstement and paving.docxAugust 8, 2022
To: Annette Spicard, City Manager
Nathan Stewart, Public Works Director
Bob Giles, Mayor
Bessie Jo Wagner and City Council
RE: Need to consider ways to reduce the disadvantages of living on unpaved streets in McCall and to develop a plan to pave all unpaved streets by 2040
Dear McCall City Officials:
Thank you for your commitment to maintain the beauty and clean, safe environment of McCall and its surrounding forests and lakes. We have the following questions about what the residents
who live on unpaved street and the city can do to support the goal of keeping our city and, especially, Payette Lake clean and beautiful.
What does the city use for dust abatement? Does it include any oily substance or just MgCl2 or CaCl2? For about two weeks after the dust abatement is applied, there is a gooey mess
on our street (Flynn Lane) which sticks to our tires and vehicle undercarriage, and leaves foul, oily black tire tracks and chemical debris on our driveway and garage floor. Please
see attached photos of driveway and garage after a single trip home soon after the city came through with dust abatement efforts. What are the environmental impacts of the dust abatement
that is used? Does it adversely affect trees or other vegetation? Will it contaminate the ground water and lake?
We had a professional carpet cleaner clean our wall-to-wall carpets on 7/28/22. He showed us that the ugly black stains on the high traffic areas of our living and bedroom carpets where
we walk in from the front door or garage were oil, which we think could come only from the street. It is difficult to wash off this chemically-polluted, potentially toxic oily substance
from our vehicles’ undercarriages.
In 2017, Mark Russell and we discussed a Local Option Tax (LOT) strategy to get several streets in our neighborhood paved and received a quote from the city of about $800,000 to pave
Flynn Lane alone. Per city instructions, we mailed letters informing all neighborhood residents (>130 homes) of our proposal and the above quote from the city’s contract engineering
firm and held a neighborhood meeting to explain further and take questions. Several neighbors were adamantly opposed to both the paving proposal and the LOT, so we gave up on paving.
Since paving does not appear to be an option for a long time, what other options can you suggest to reduce the gooey mess described above, still reduce the dust and minimize any adverse
effects on the environment? Are there other methods of dust abatement for unpaved city streets that are affordable for McCall? We did a google search and found a couple of options:
Perma-Zyme. Attached are 4 documents describing this product. Check out the video in the link below.
https://www.substrata.us/perma-zyme/unpaved-road?hsLang=en
Calcium Chloride vs Magnesium Chloride
https://www.oxycalciumchloride.com/building-better-roads/controlling-dust/how-to-control-dust/choosing-the-right-dust-suppressant
Can the city develop a plan to pave all the unpaved residential streets within city limits in the next 20 years without imposing a LOT? Since 2017, 8 vacant lots on Flynn Lane have
been connected to city water and sewer and likely will have houses built soon. What impact will new housing have on getting streets paved? In addition to the problems described above,
even with dust abatement, residents who live on unpaved streets are also exposed to a lot more dust than residents who live on paved streets. Dust exposure is a health risk for lung
disease and allergies. The city always justifies not paving streets because paved streets are more costly to maintain than unpaved ones. However, residents on unpaved streets can
not keep their cars clean, have ugly gunk in their garages after dust abatement and dust in their lungs and homes. They pay a price for living on unpaved streets. Long term residents
on Chipmunk, Conifer and Flynn told us that when this neighborhood was annexed into the city decades ago, city officials promised to pave the streets. However, this has not happened
and we have not seen any plan for paving the unpaved streets in McCall. Only Strawberry has been paved through the generosity of the Troutner family.
We appreciate all the improvements the City of McCall has made since we moved here in 2007. We strongly recommend that city consider more effective and environmentally safe dust abatement
and plan to pave some unpaved residential streets every year so that all McCall residents can enjoy the benefits of living on a paved street by 2040 or sooner.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas Welty, MD Edith Welty, MD
939 Flynn Lane, McCall, ID 83638
Oil Tracks on our driveway after MgCl-7-22
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Oil tracks in garage
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