Coweta County is grouped among several Georgia counties that form the sprawling Atlanta metropolitan region. In the past several years, the region experienced exponential growth in the housing, retail, and industrial markets. The impact of this development began to show on the sand clay-based road system through out the county and ultimately, the progress could not be sustained without addressing  the deteriorating roads. .

Coweta County’s Director of Development and Engineering, Wayne Kennedy, set out to find a solution to support the growing needs of the community. In 2005, he made his first decision to use the sustainable method of full-depth reclamation with cement (FDR) to recycle the county’s roads.

Coweta’s roads, like other Georgia counties’ roads, were built on a sand/clay base where the asphalt was placed directly over the underlying soil rather than on a rock/aggregate or soil-cement base. This construction technique was used for many years and most roads performed quite well. However, as counties like Coweta experienced growth, the roads were subjected to heavier loads and began to deteriorate. FDR with cement replaces the traditional but burdensome and costly method of full reconstruction, which requires completely ripping out the old, worn out roadway and replacing it from the ground up. By mixing cement with old roadway material, FDR recycles the old unsafe or inefficient roadways into a strong foundation. . There is no need to haul in aggregate or haul out old material for disposal, reducing construction truck traffic and waste. FDR conserves virgin construction materials, saves fuel, and prevents loaded trucks from tearing up the road. The process also reduces the need for bringing new materials to the construction site and hauling old materials out, thus reducing fuel consumption and cutting down on vehicle emissions. This does not even account for the fuel savings and emissions reduction associated with a drastically reduced construction time versus conventional reconstruction.

The county’s first project in 2005 illustrated the economic and environmental benefits of FDR in updating the road system. “After seeing the process we were pretty convinced that FDR using cement was a viable alternative to extensive deep patching,” said Fred Landrum, Transportation Project Manager for Coweta County. Kennedy and the Coweta County leadership authorized an additional project totaling 14.8 miles of roadway in 2007.

In 2008, Coweta County began its single largest contract with FDR. The project totals 18.9 miles of roadway. The roads have an average depth of reclamation of 8 inches with 45 pounds of portland cement used to stabilize the new base. By mid-2009, the county completed 85 miles and 998,000 square yards of FDR with cement.

Not only did the County save an average of 29 percent of the initial cost when estimating the cost of deep patching of the deteriorating asphalt, but FDR also proved to be less of an inconvenience to the driving public due to the mitigation of the construction zone and shorter time period in which the project was completed.

During this three year period, Coweta County officials demonstrate that they are moving into a leadership role for sustainable development. Kennedy estimates that the FDR with cement saves the County approximately 60 percent of the typical cost of deep patching.

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