By implementing chip seal projects throughout the Community, the Gila River Indian Community Department of Transportation (GRIC DOT) is taking road maintenance into their hands while providing a cost effective solution to repairing roads.
According to Jimmy Garcia, Maintenance Supervisor for GRIC DOT, the department has chip sealed four roads in the Sacaton area. In early October, the department chip sealed Church Street, Cholla Street, Main Street, and Pima Street.
"Over the last, going on nine years, we've been trying to get into a process of doing maintenance on the roads out here. The BIA (had) funded roads to get built but there was never enough funding for the maintenance of the roads, " Garcia said. "Roads need to be cared for. They need conditioning like everything else. Now that our department is in full progress here, we are taking over that responsibility."
GRIC DOT was established by a Community Council resolution in '97 which formed the organization of the department. From that point on the Community Council has funded GRIC DOT to maintain roads that the BIA can't.
In 2001, through the utilization of a 638 contract, GRIC DOT was able to contract out the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) road department and take over all the BIA and tribal roads within Community boundary.
Public Law 93-638, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, has given tribes the ability to take control of BIA-administered programs through what has become known as ‘638' contracting. Criteria according to P.L. 93-638 offers tribes the opportunity to contract all programs within the BIA. The goal is to give tribes control over BIA programs such as housing, education and transportation.
When the Community contracted the BIA roads department through the 638 contract, GRIC DOT was given a yearly allocation, between $200,000-$300,000, of maintenance funds to maintain the roads throughout the entire Community. Although this amount might seem rather large, when it comes to road maintenance, it's a not a whole lot.
Costs can be upward of $1M a mile to pave a road with asphalt, including curbs, gutters and striping. Douglas Torres, Director of GRIC DOT said, "When people talk about $1M a mile, that is a reality. But in other cases, it could be down to $250,000 per mile depending on what you're doing like this chip seal job."
For the uninitiated, chip sealing is a less expensive but reliable option in saving roads. It basically reinforces surface of the road. First, a layer of oil is sprayed atop the pre-existing asphalt road. A layer of chips, similar to gravel, is then spread evenly over the freshly oiled road. It's beneficial in that the oil and chips keep water, weather and the hot sun from destroying the sub grade of the road.
Garcia said that underneath the asphalt lies an A/B, rock, sand and dirt mixture. When water gets underneath the asphalt, potholes are formed. "We're trying to prevent any further deterioration of the road," Garcia said. "That's what the chip seal is about. Throughout the Community you'll see a lot of bad roads, but we're out there fixing a lot of roads."
Regarding the Sacaton area roads, Torres said, "We're doing these four roads that would have otherwise been deteriorating. If we let these roads go they would just crumble because they're not rejuvenated with oil. A lot of other roads are in the same condition and we're trying to catch up to see if we can save some of these roads."
The cost to chip seal is almost half what it would cost to repave which, in the end, saves the Community a tremendous amount of money. "We're probably doing it for almost one-quarter of the cost because of the equipment and the manpower we have," Torres said. "Otherwise, we'd be giving it out to outside consultants and contractors."
According to Torres, because the BIA doesn't currently have staff for road maintenance, jobs like these would ultimately be contracted out to outside sources. Because of Indian Preference policies, the bid would first go to a Native American contractor. If one could not be found, the bid would then go an outside source.
Staffing concerns are not exclusive to one department or agency, they have extended far across many departments within the Community as a hiring freeze had been implemented previous to the FY 09 budget being approved by Community Council.
Garcia was getting ready to bring more staff aboard when the hiring freeze went into effect. He had just lost five of his staff and was supposed to get an additional six operators and six road maintenance workers.
"We have projects and I can't just stop," he said. "I have to keep going. Then they put the freeze on us. It killed me."
However by initiating these projects, GRIC DOT has provided jobs to tribal members and given them an opportunity to gain skilled expertise in the field. Crewmembers are trained to operate equipment and given hands-on instruction, so that they're able to do the same type of jobs that they would be doing outside of the Community.
"Because, within the department, we are training them and allowing them to get on equipment. Some have picked it up within a year and they're out there doing the same kind of job that they would be doing on the outside," Torres said. "If these guys left here they could probably get on at any other paving company because they know it and they have the experience,"
Beyond chip sealing projects, GRIC DOT has done plenty of other jobs throughout the Community like paving parking lots and repaving roads. According to Torres, the list of projects is extensive and everyday the department is out performing road maintenance. Currently, GRIC DOT is concentrating on two major projects in the west end, paving Carver Road and a penetration chip seal job on Co-op Road.
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