Taney Road recently was repaved with special road material designed to reduce the amount of sediment that washes off the dirt road into nearby waterways.

Shawn Rybka, Watershed Program Coordinator for the Luzerne Conservation District, said he was interested to find out how the special road material, known as Driving Surface Aggregate (DSA), performs on Taney Road. Slusser Brothers, which manufactured the DSA at its nearby Small Mountain Quarry, paved nearly 2,000 feet of Taney Road with the compact road material.

“I am interested to see what this material can do,” said Rybka, inspecting the work on Taney Road. “We may be able to use this material in other jobs around the county.”

Rybka said Slusser Brothers donated the material, equipment, operators, truck drivers and laborers for the Taney Road paving project. Rybka said the Watershed Program has about $25,000 in its annual budget to cover dirt road projects like Taney Road throughout Luzerne County. He estimated that the Taney Road project would have cost nearly twice as much as the program’s entire budget. In addition to the paving project, Slusser Brothers previously donated a grading machine and operator to excavate swales along Taney Road to handle water run-off.

“To do a project this size, the cost would be astronomical,” Rybka said.

“This would be way out of our budget. Slusser Brothers donating the material and manpower is just great.”

Slusser Brothers General Manager Patrick Bartorillo said the company was glad it could help the conservation district repair the township road. He said the close proximity of Small Mountain Quarry made the work possible.