Low road bid is from Mt. Vernon, Mo., company

Cape Girardeau County highway administrator Scott Bechtold will recommend accepting the low bid of a Mount Vernon, Mo., construction company to pave 12 miles of county roads in a test of chip-and-seal materials.

Blevins Asphalt Construction Co. Inc.'s bid of $788,124 includes an adjustment for an additional 2,010 tons of chip-and-seal aggregate not accounted for in the county's bid request. The county engineering estimate was $1,018,970.

Bechtold said the adjustment did not concern the company because the bids were made by unit price.

Bechtold will make his recommendation Thursday to the Cape Girardeau County Commission. He met Tuesday with the Cape Girardeau County Road and Bridge Advisory Board.

In actions Tuesday, the board dropped three roads from its 2008 paving plan because some easements weren't signed by the Feb. 15 deadline. The roads are county roads 380, 435 and 436. The board decided not to drop County Road 419 from the plan even though one of the easements has not been granted. The exception was made because the county commission had made a commitment to pave the road before the advisory board and its policies were established.

Board chairman Larry Payne said County Road 436 will not be paved this year even though it has already been graded. The missing easement is at the top of a hill, and the board is concerned about the safety if the road narrows there.

To replace the 4.6 miles of road eliminated from the 2008 paving plan, the board decided to add county roads 363 and 383 to the chip-and-seal paving test and county roads 361 and 451 to the paving plan for hot-mix asphalt.

Chip-and-seal paving tests will be conducted on county roads 273, 316, 380, 422, 440, 522, 523, and 539. The method is less expensive than traditional hot-mix asphalt. Bechtold told the board the chip and seal cost will be about $67,000 per mile, which includes a 2-inch base not factored in when the county initially discussed the chip-and-seal test. The price is still about half that of hot-mix asphalt.

The adjusted chip-and-seal paving bids were: Missouri Petroleum Products Co. LLC, St. Louis, $1,199,320; ASA Asphalt Inc., Advance, $1,151,253.20; Donelson Construction Co. LLC, Clever, Mo., $863,056; A.E. Simpson Construction Inc., Scott City, $794,374; and Blevins Asphalt Construction Co. Inc., Mount Vernon, Mo., $788,124.

The board's next meeting will be at 7 p.m. March 10 at the county Administrative Building.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137