With winter in the rearview mirror and summer fast approaching, dust control season is already in full swing here at GMCO. Dust control and soil stabilization is a critical part of summer maintenance for many Western and Great Plains States. The benefits of treating gravel roads with magnesium chloride includes safer roads to drive on with less potholes and rutting, improving visibility and raising driver satisfaction while lowering the potential of vehicle damage. There are also significant environmental benefits of treating gravel roads with magnesium chloride. For instance, treating roads improves the air quality for businesses and residents who work and live near a gravel road, and it also provides erosion control. Mitigating dust and stabilizing the road base also helps reduce sediment loading of surrounding waterways.
There are also cost saving benefits to treating gravel roads. Dust control and soil stabilization with magnesium chloride helps lower the overall cost of maintaining a gravel road, parking lot or construction zone by reducing the amount of aggregate lost by daily traffic. Replacing the gravel in your road can be costly and untreated roads tend to lose their aggregate more rapidly. Using water alone doesn’t help with the stabilization of the road base and only adds more cost as watering is labor and fuel intensive. Many areas in need of dust control and stabilization products have restricted water rights making the use of water as a primary dust control treatment even more difficult. Using magnesium chloride saves the user money by reducing the amount of yearly application and maintenance needed while also reducing aggregate loss. Not quite convinced magnesium chloride can save you money? Visit our cost calculator @ www.gmcocorp.com/resources and see the savings for yourself!
Did you know that in the summer of 2023, GMCO delivered over 22 million gallons of magnesium chloride-based dust control products to counties, cities, townships, private customers, vineyards, horse arenas, commercial operations, mining operations, military bases, construction projects and so much more? Yet our operations team at GMCO balances the storage, delivery, and application of those millions of gallons like a world class conductor directs a symphony! At GMCO we pride ourselves on our service and our operations team is the backbone of everything we do. GMCO also offers yearly educational classes called Roads Done Right™ (RDR™) to help maintenance supervisors and equipment operators improve their techniques for preparing and treating a gravel road. Taught by our resident expert Bill Langren, RDR™ is another way that GMCO gives back to the industry. The class is a combination of classroom training followed by an on-road demonstration. If you have the opportunity to attend a class, be sure not to miss out.
IntegriBlend M is the workhorse of the GMCO dust control and road stabilization product portfolio. A straight magnesium chloride product, IntegriBlend M is the choice for many agencies across the GMCO universe. The hygroscopic nature of the magnesium chloride in IntegriBlend M works by pulling the moisture out of the atmosphere helping keep the road surface hydrated, which in turn helps bind the surface soils to the road surface. Not all gravel roads are the same though, and some customers seek a higher level of stabilization. That’s why GMCO also offers products like IntegriBlend Plus and IntegriBlend CS. IntegriBlend Plus and CS use complex sugars to help improve road stabilization even further by physically binding the smaller particles in your gravel road. The additives also extend the working time of the magnesium chloride by keeping the magnesium chloride closer to the road surface, so it continues to pull moisture from the atmosphere. Our team of professionals here at GMCO will help you find the right product for your dust control and road stabilization needs!
Rob Greene - Director of Sales
Comments