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UP / Thumb of Michigan | Mrs B - 8/9/2025 10:21
SEHUSKER - 8/9/2025 05:41 The county doesn’t pay for the dust control, property owners do. Gives people an option to fix the dust problem themselves if they don’t like the dust. In our county, that's the situation. Residents pay for the treatment, but has to be done thru an authorization process at the county and there's only 1 supplier for the dust control product that approved by the county. No opportunity for any sort of financial conflict there! ;^ )
This is going to sound - I guess odd at best- when it came to dust control products in the county I'm from. I think its likely common throughout Michigan, most counties have a road commission and generally speaking, policy is very similar between counties.
Our policy for dust control products was spec'd a long time ago. That was the product that the engineers liked and deemed the most effective. That was the product the bid described. Sounds good so far, right?
Except- no one had that product. Wasn't available, at least within a reasonable distance that any supplier wanted to bid.
So, the advertisement for bids went out every winter/ early spring. There were 3 to 5 suppliers that bid on the dust control product and application. None of them met "spec". They all worked, its just when it came down to it what a township wanted to use. Some of the products were expensive relatively speaking but usually gave season long control. Others were a lot cheaper relatively speaking, but it took at least 2 applications during the year to get acceptable control.
The county accepted the bids and provided those bids and product descriptions to the townships. The townships then decided whose product they wanted to buy. Then, the county coordinated grading with the different suppliers. It seems to work well.
If there are particular areas that need more, then (in our case) the township is contacted first by a resident. The township decides whether to do more (in this case dust control) or not. If they do want to do more, they contact the road commission and the supplier.
If the township doesn't want to do any more, then a resident is certainly able to either contact the road commission in person and either pays for additional dust control themselves, or they find out which products are approved and do what it takes to apply it themselves.
In the big picture: in the time I took to write all that down, I'm betting any of us could come up with a way to just go right ahead and apply something to keep dust down and cover enough area to get some satisfaction. Just a guess. | |
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Township road work.
