Waste Tire Project Helps Protect Streams

Pennsylvania is initiating several waste-tire-reuse demonstration projects that could rid the state of 500,000 discarded tires while rehabilitating rural roads, reducing sediment flowing to streams, and eliminating breeding grounds for mosquitoes that may carry the West Nile virus. 

Penn State University’s Center for Dirt and Gravel Road Studies will use baled waste tires as a fill material to rebuild severely entrenched dirt and gravel roads. Erosion along dirt and gravel roads is a common problem in rural communities, and can be a major source of sediment loading to lakes and streams. Penn State will use the tire bales as a fill base on portions of two roads in Madison and Greenwood townships, Columbia County. Drainage structures through the road base will allow sediment-bearing runoff to be dispersed to stable, vegetated areas of adjacent land, rather than flowing down the dirt roads and into streams. Work on the project is expected to be complete this summer. The Penn State project is one of several efforts aimed at finding beneficial uses for the estimated 6 million waste tires at the Starr Tire Pile in Greenwood Township, Columbia County. http://www.ahs.dep.state.pa.us/newsreleases/default.asp?ID=3868