Natural Road Building

[Rob Tucker]

This is interesting:

I attended a BoD meeting for Orchidland recently at which I listened to a presentation from Xzyme Corp by a woman named Nova Lee.

The story is (as I remember it) that a decade ago Brazil - which is also a rainforest environment- was losing half it's rural agricultural crop to mud mired roads. The farmer's couldn't get their crops to market in the rainy season. Bad business for everybody.

A method was developed to take natural soils and aggregates and catalyze them with an enzyme which produced concrete hardness of dirt surfaces. The enzyme is non-toxic.
The process produced roads with a tenyear history of non muddy driving without rutting and pot-holing.

Orchidland was being asked to take on a couple test miles for demonstration.

HPP is currently looking at spending about $240,000 per mile for asphalt. The natural road building tech from Brazil is projected to cost $35,000-$40,000 per mile.

Xzyme Corp says all of the bas materials - soils & aggregates are vailable here on the Big Island. No petroleum is used except to operate the grading and compacting machinery.

They have completed U.S. roads in Taos, NM and are currently laying road in San Diego County.

www.xzyme.com

Check it out.

[Guest]

Was this the meeting that you are talking about?

Paving: Dennis said the committee met with contractors and is incorporating their comments into the
draft paving plan, which should be available to the Board by the first week of January. It will be put
out for bid after the General Manager and Board of Directors have reviewed and approved the plan.
The committee explored the possibility of using enzyme products as stabilizers as described in X-Zyme
Corporation's brochure. Dennis said a concern is that cinder may be too porous to be compatible unless
soil is added to the road base. The vendor has offered a test sample, which Dennis suggested be used
on a bicycle path.
Suzanne said they have been successful on the Mainland, although shipping costs may be prohibitive,
since it is a liquid product.

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OLCA NEWS
"....roughly quoted at $50,000 per mile including prep."

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When I look at pictures of the example of completed roads they really don't look that sturdy and could they really handle the Rains that Puna gets.

[Rob Tucker]

Thanks for the link to the PDF file Damon.

I am interested in people and technologies that challenge the conventional assumptions.

There is an assumption that roads are black asphalt. More petroleum. With costs approachinig a quarter million a mile for asphalt I find the Xzyme methodology more than interesting. I am making arrangements to do some tests on my property (always willing to test things myself).

We should not be afraid of alternative solutions. We should be praying for more alternatives.

[Guest]

Look at the comment on page 30 of the pdf file from the Office of the Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department.


Per our meeting Thursday, November 15th and your request for written approval to use the enzymes for the Taos County Roads.
Based upon the information we were provided on the enzyme, we are not endorsing the product, but we feel it is okay to use on the roads.

Interesting how this file is supposed to be confidential too [] When will people realize that posting stuff to the internet is not fail safe.

[lotus]

WOW!!! I'm excited!

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

[ArtM]

Another alternative:

polypavement

(No experience with either method, but if you're going to test things out...)

ArtM

[Bob Orts]

Plants of the Opuntia family have been used for ages by Native Americans as natural and organic fortifying and bonding agent in cement-less construction methods. You’ll see it sprayed on dirt paths to create a hard surface. It’s used on dirt airfields. It can be strained for only the liquid (glue like bonding agent), in combo of liquid and pulp (mixed with dirt and gravel to form a natural concrete), or peeled and diced to add zing to guacamole. []

[DrJ]

What's the durability of these roads vs. Pavement? Time wise? That's a neat solution for areas that don't see a lot of traffic, but enough to necessitate a solution. This forum is great! I never knew about this or really much about GMO's but now I'm getting informed.

[Rob Tucker]

I can't respond on the facts of these roads. Some of you will need to do your own research. I can add this:

Construction costs can vary - of course. They describe the ideal conditions for natural road building to occur in Puna. We have lots and lots of rock right at the surface to bond a road bed to. This means a minimum of 6" of enzyme treated material is compacted directly bonding to the stone below.

Hamakua, by contrast, has lots of roads over deep soil. Locations like that - with deep soft soil - may require enzyme treated road beds layered up to 30" thick or more.

They did describe that upon placement and compaction that light traffic can run on it very soon. Heavy traffic needs to be kept off the road for 72 hours.

Pavement has it's maintenance and durability issues too. Asphalt, done correctly, needs a lot of road bed preparation. Compacted gravel & fiines over well graded routes. A soft spot in the road bed results in - guess what? potholes. So in pavement the performance of the asphalt is directly related to the performance of the underlying ground.

So the proposal with this enzyme system is that basically you get a very serviceable road for the cost of the roadbed preparation that asphalt would usually require. And with the enzyme bonding to the substrate there should be no soft spots.

That worries me about HPP. I don't think that the $240,000 per mile includes grading and road bed preparatioin. I'm not sure. Someone correct me.

[Guest]

Killing two birds with one stone []

Glassphalt