ATLANTA, TX — About 150 miles of Northeast Texas highways will receive new surfaces during the summer of 2020 with a contract awarded by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).

The Texas Transportation Commission approved a bid of $7.3 million from Missouri Petroleum Products Company of Mountain View, Missouri, to seal coat highways in eight counties located within the Atlanta District.

"Seal coating a highway involves placing a layer of hot asphalt over the old pavement and then covering it with crushed stone," said Mike Anderson, District Engineer in Atlanta. “This is a relatively inexpensive process that makes the roadway surface watertight, improves skid resistance and preserves the pavement structure."

In an effort to help keep used tires off Texas landscapes, the district is requiring the asphalt used to be mixed with "crumb rubber" made from grinding up old tires.

“Using crumb rubber in our asphalt has proved to be an excellent process for seal coating our highways,” Anderson said. “The rock is less likely to pull loose, there are fewer occurrences of the asphalt bleeding through the rock and it can be used on a wider variety of surfaces.”