Pierce County has purchased new liquid asphalt tanks that officials say could help prevent an asphalt shortage like the one the county went through last summer.

The county had to cancel 48 miles of preventive chipsealing maintenance last July when its supplier, Albina Asphalt Products of Vancouver, Wash., ran out of asphalt.

The three new tanks, which together can hold 45,000 gallons of liquid asphalt, give Pierce County more control over its supply, said Bruce Wagner, Pierce County road operations manager.

The tanks cost $1 million.

Before the tanks were completed and filled last month, the county had no asphalt storage capacity, Wagner said. Road crews relied on asphalt delivered directly to project sites as it was needed – and, if bad weather halted paving work, the county had to pay for the supplier to haul the asphalt back to where it came from.

“Now they can deliver straight to our facility and we supply ourselves,” Wagner said. “The worst thing that can happen is we have to haul it back to our own tank.”

Because the county can now buy liquid asphalt in bulk, it should also save money, said Bryan Ziegler, county public works and utilities director.

“Because we were buying one tankerload at a time – 3,000 gallons – we weren’t getting a lot of attention from the suppliers, which frankly is I think why we got cut off,” Ziegler said Thursday.

With the new tanks, Ziegler said, “We can have a backup supply in the event of a real shortage and we can get a better price.”

The county is now working to complete the chipsealing it didn’t finish last year. In total, the county will apply chipseal to 245 lane miles of road this summer, Wagner said.

Chipseal is applied to roads in between major repaving work to help maintain them. Pierce County applies about 1 million square yards of chip seal each year – approximately equal to 500,000 gallons of liquid asphalt.

The price of asphalt jumped dramatically between 2006 and 2008, reflecting the rising price of oil. In 2006, Pierce County paid $270 per ton for hot-mix and liquid asphalt, but during the asphalt shortage last July the price had risen to $660 a ton.

Melissa Santos: 253-552-7058

melissa.santos@thenewstribune.com