The California Asphalt Pavement Association sent a letter to the California Department of Transportation last week reiterating the association's position on the timeline for implementing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) on Caltrans projects.

While the association has long advocated for the development of robust EPDs as part of the asphalt industry's "Net Zero" carbon reduction strategy, and has worked closely with Caltrans toward achieving that goal, the association reiterated concerns with the current state of EPDs, particularly the inputs that are critical to creating a document that is accurate and meaningful to project owners as well as the community. The CalAPA position is in alignment with it's national partners, the National Asphalt Pavement Association and the Asphalt Institute. A copy of the March 27 letter is HERE.

The letter comes as external forces and elected officials are increasingly pressuring the department, and other public agencies, to move more quickly on Greenhouse Gas emission-reduction initiatives to address global warming. EPDs are viewed as an important transparency step toward that goal. CalAPA opposed an EPD bill in the Legislature last year as premature and over-prescriptive. The bill ultimately died in the Legislature.

"The California Asphalt Pavement Association (CalAPA) supports in principle the Caltrans effort to utilize Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to assess sustainability in the State's pavement infrastructure," the CalAPA letter to Caltrans Director Tony Tavares states. "We applaud Caltrans' leadership in this effort and their commitment to partnering with the asphalt pavement industry. Together we can ensure that decisions about procurement and utilization of construction materials on the state highway system are based on quality data and a technically sound process."

The letter goes on to recommend that the Caltrans-industry Pavement & Materials Partnering Committee, which has proven in recent years to be an effective forum for development and updating construction materials standards, to lead the effort. The CalAPA letter also recommends a timeline for implementation for informational-only EPDs after Jan. 1, 2026. CalAPA also recommended that EPDs should be provided at the time of Job Mix Formula (JMF) submittal. The association's position was vetted by its Technical Advisory Committee and approved by the CalAPA Board of Directors at its March 20 meeting in Sacramento.

CalAPA has participated in numerous activities over the years to raise awareness of asphalt and sustainability, including holding educational forums, webinars and other outreach to share the latest knowledge and best-practices about EPDs. A special environmental-themed issue of the association's magazine, "California Asphalt," that was published last year carried the cover title, "The ABCs of EPDs." That issue can be viewed on-line HERE.

For more information on this topic, contact CalAPA's Director of Technical Services, Brandon Milar, P.E., at (916) 791-5044.

Gov. Gavin Newsom re-appointed a CalAPA-endorsed member of the California Transportation Commission to a new four-year term, it was announced last week.

Lee Ann Eager, of San Diego, has served on the CTC since 2020. She is also a member of the California Workforce Development Board, the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, the Fresno State Transportation Institute and Fresno Works.

An attorney by training, she was president and chief executive officer of the Fresno County Economic Development Board from 2009 to 2023, and was an attorney for Lang, Richert & Patch from 2005 to 2009. She holds a Bachelor's Degree from California State University, Fresno, and a law degree from the University of California, Davis, School of Law.

CalAPA joined a coalition letter to the Governor's Office in January, coordinated by CalAPA-supported Transportation California, urging the governor to reappoint Eager to another term on the commission, which oversees transportation spending and policy in California.

"Since her appointment in June 2020, Ms. Eager has served the State of California and its nearly 40 million residents well, bringing energy, enthusiasm, and unique expertise to the many and varied transportation funding decisions that the Commission makes," the coalition letter stated.

The official March 29 announcement by the Governor's Office is HERE. Eager's biography is HERE. The official CTC website is HERE. To learn more about the Transportation California coalition, click HERE.

Given this is April 1st -- April Fool's Day -- we wish the following was a prank, but it isn't. Frustrated residents of Compton, in Los Angeles County, tired of car-damaging potholes in their neighborhood, have taken matters into their own hands. Armed with asphalt patching material from the local hardware store, these pothole activists have taken to filling in holes in the neighborhood. They even have a GoFundMe page HERE.

We're not joking.

The activity caught the notice of the Los Angeles Times, which reported on the situation March 29 under the following headline: "A Compton Couple fixed neighborhood potholes. The city has ordered them to stop."

Daisy De La Rosa, 29, told the newspaper the effort was sparked when a neighborhood pothole caused a flat tire on her car. Frustrated that nothing was being done about it, she and her husband, Alex De La Rosa, 35, fixed a few nearby potholes themselves DIY style. Both need their vehicles for work, so this is more than an annoyance too often faced by millions of other Californians in their communities. Soon their neighbors also requested help, and a mini-pothole patrol was born.

When the city got wind of this activity, it issued a cease-and-desist letter, dated March 14, demanding that the couple stop "unauthorized repairs to public roadways," the newspaper reported. The city said the actions pose a threat to public safety and the integrity of the city's infrastructure.

"It is imperative that all maintenance and repair work on public roadways be conducted in accordance with established regulations and procedures to ensure the safety and well-being of our residents and visitors," the city letter states, according to The Times.

We agree with the city, of course, but it is certainly hard not to sympathize with long-suffering residents who must endure years of deferred maintenance on local roadways while the state and local governments continue to receive billions of dollars of tax dollars each year devoted to this purpose. Crummy roads in California, according to TRIP, a national transportation research firm, can cost California residents as much as $1,000 per year in car repairs, lost fuel economy and other costs, not to mention the hazards and time lost dealing with the aftermath of a car-pothole encounter.

But what about SB1 you say? That, of course, was the Road Repair & Accountability Act of 2017 that raised billions in fuel taxes to fix our roadways. All metrics studied by CalAPA since then, including HMA consumption by Caltrans, suggest that not enough is being done to address basic pavement conditions. Similar scenarios are being reported by CalAPA members at the local level.

Longtime Sacramento opinion columnist Dan Walters said as much last week when he lamented about the sorry state of California roads, and the lagging maintenance efforts, in a column for CalMatters. The headline on his March 29 column was, "Californians pay high gas prices yet still drive on bad highways." He cities federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics data as well as his own multi-state windshield observations, and concludes his column with the following: "We're paying the most in gas taxes and getting almost the least in roadway quality." His full column is HERE.

A brief video that succinctly sums up the problem of poorly maintained roads, and the solution, was produced by the CalAPA-supported Asphalt Pavement Alliance and can be viewed HERE.

Bad roads are no laughing matter. It's time for our elected officials and public works professionals to get back to basics on the thing their constituents notice the most -- smooth, safe and well-maintained roads, and resist the bleating of various constituency groups seeking to divert maintenance funds for more glamourous "active transportation" projects, wildlife tunnels and other "shiny object" diversions that suck up precious dollars that could be used to eliminate potholes. If there continues to be inaction, frustrated Californians may take matters in their own hands in another way, at the ballot box.

A calendar listing in last week's Asphalt Insider newsletter for the association's annual "Day at the Races" event at Del Mar included an incorrect date. The event will be held on Saturday, July 27 at Del Mar Race Track in Del Mar. Photos from last year's event can be found on CalAPA's Facebook page HERE. Previous magazine coverage of the event is HERE.

Each week we highlight a word, acronym or other term commonly used in the asphalt pavement industry in California.

CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE: Maintenance performed once a distress becomes severe enough to cause pavement disintegration, excessive deformation or cracking. It is applied to the pavement (e.g., pothole filling, or spall repair) to repair the specific distress type. 

Each week we highlight a key point or best practice of interest to asphalt paving crews, inspectors and others working in the field. We welcome suggestions. More tips can be found in our "Asphalt Parking Lot Construction Checklist" HERE. Information on the CalAPA "Quality Paving Certificate" program is HERE.

TONNAGE CALCULATION: Are there enough trucks on the run to haul the mix needed to complete the job? If you have five trucks on the round each carrying 25 tons = 125 tons per round. If each round takes one hour to make, then the production rate is 125 tons per hour. If the job requires 1,000 tons at 125 tons per hour = eight hours to get the mix to the job.

Each week we highlight a term that is specific to climate-change issues related to the asphalt pavement industry. This feature is intended to raise awareness of the asphalt industry's climate-change initiatives and the specialized terminology that goes with them. More information on "The Road Forward" asphalt industry climate initiative can be found HERE.

CARBON CREDIT: Trade-able certificate used in carbon mitigation policy systems.

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

– Mark Twain

We hope you enjoy CalAPA's Asphalt Insider newsletter. We are committed to providing you with the most up-to-date information on technical issues, regulation, news, analysis, people, events and trends in California that is of interest to the asphalt pavement industry and our various agency partners. To subscribe to the newsletter, click HERE. For comments, questions or to suggest a story idea, click HERE.

Sincerely,

Russell W. Snyder, CAE

Executive Director

The California Asphalt Pavement Association (CalAPA)®