Once the entire section is completed, the Okmulgee County crews add water to the windrows of material and compact it using rollers. The addition of water helps facilitate the compaction process. Once adequate density is achieved, the recycled material provides an excellent base for the new road surface to follow. Okmulgee County uses their own crews to perform chip and seal jobs, but if the recycled surface is to receive hot mix asphalt, the commissioners put the task up for bid.

"The roads that we're rebuilding using the recycler will last up to 10 years before we have to address them again," said Henson. "Of course, with chip and seal there's naturally more maintenance along the way, but the addition of an asphalt surface to the recycled base results in a high-quality, stable road." With the continued success of recycled roads, Okmulgee is not the only Oklahoma county now using this technology. According to Henson, most of the eastern rural counties are renting recyclers on a regular basis. In fact, G.W. Van Keppel currently has six of the new BOMAG units in their Oklahoma equipment fleet and are having trouble keeping them in stock.

"Van Keppel has been great to work with," said Henson. "Though the machines are easy to use, they helped train us during the initial equipment delivery. Also, we just haven't had any problems with the recyclers, which is very important. The only real maintenance you have to worry about is changing the teeth out on the rotors, but this basically just means tapping the old ones out and tapping new ones in."

Road recycling is by no means a "new" process, but the fact that rural government agencies are implementing this method results in better mileage for the taxpayer's dollar and an ever improving driving surface. "Every commissioner I've talked to that's using recyclers likes the process because it's saving them money," said Henson. "Sure, I'd love to have the budget to go out and grind all of our roads and start over. In fact, we have a lot of roads that need it, but economically we just can't do it. But by committing a portion of our budget to recycling every year, we not only save money in the long run, but little by little, we end up with more miles of better road surfaces."