Rotarians Maureen O'Hara and Mark Dennys keep track of the Good Food Box deliveries. Nutritious fruits and vegetables are packed by the Rotary Club of Haliburton at the arena and are then transported throughout the county./JENN WATT Staff

Money wasted on roads

To the Editor

Last week I travelled to town from my cottage on Haliburton Lake using Harburn Road. I noticed the road repair work in progress and noted the road crew was not tamping down the asphalt repair material into the potholes but simply piling the repair material into the holes and relying on passing vehicles to compact the material into the holes.
The result was road repair material comprised of fine stone and asphaltene to be spread all over the road with less material being left in the hole.

At our Haliburton Lake AGM this year our local councillor and the mayor advised that more of our cottage roads were being returned to gravel only primarily because of maintenance costs. The most expensive component of road repair is the asphaltene combined with fine stone. This method that was being used both wasted this very expensive material and labour due to less material in the holes.
The road crew when questioned on this explained this was how they were instructed to carry out this work. I was advised by our local councillor to contact the county which I did but to date no response.
As well as all this waste all the vehicles passing were as well as spreading the material over the entire road covering their vehicles in asphalt spotting. If maintenance costs are resulting in local roads reverting to gravel why the waste? Politicians wake up.

Patrick Berne
Haliburton