Sudbury's hot in-place road recycling pilot work found to be poor quality

City of Greater Sudbury staff say testing of a $1.8 million recycled asphalt paving project on the Kingsway this summer found the work doesn't meet the standards agreed to with the contractor.

“A third-party report has been received summarizing all available (quality control) and (quality assurance) testing for the HIR (hot in-place recycling) contract,” said a news release Thursday.

The city said a third-party consultant and their lab that tested work done by Ajax-based Road Surface Recycling Ltd. and found doesn't it meet the contract's standards and would actually reduce the expected service life of the roadway.

“Test results are a matter of public record,” the release said.

“Results are normally shared between the city and the contractor to ensure the work is progressing satisfactorily and that payments are made for work performed.”

The contract for the Kingsway work outlined specifications for the asphalt that met Ontairo provincial standards, a typical requirement for municipal work.

Testing was done by WSP Global in seven categories: surface tolerance, surface appearance, asphalt cement, mix properties, lift thickness, recovered asphalt and compaction requirements. Field observations were also used in WSP’s report.

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“On this contract, issues of non-conformance to (provincial standards) began on June 20, 2023, the contractor’s first day of work,” the release said.

“Staff identified these issues to the contractor and the issues continued during the following days of paving operations. As the contractor was unable to improve their processes to meet the (standards), the work was stopped by the city until third-party material testing could be completed.”

Frank Crupi, owner of the company completing the work, went public when the work was halted, describing additional testing as excessive in an interview with CTV News last month.

"Sudbury wants to do some additional testing that is going to take four weeks… we can't sit here and wait for four weeks,” said Crupi.

"I would say there isn't a contractor in this industry that has ever been shut down like this so additional testing could be done above and beyond what the contract calls for.”

Before the test results were released, Crupi gave several media interview blasting the city for halting his work and claiming there was no justification to stop the project. He is scheduled to appear Sept. 7 at a meeting organized by vocal city hall critic Thomas Price. 

But the test results concluded that the work the company has done so far on the Kingsway would not hold up and would reduce the expected service life of the pavement patching and lead to increased maintenance costs.

The report said that Crupi informed inspectors and other city staff that no other recycling company would be able to recycle the road with the amount of crack sealant used on it.

City representatives told CTV news the full report has been provided to the company and next steps are being explored.

The full report can be found here.