On July 24, at U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, DC, members of AEMA, ARRA, and ISSA, continued their bi-annual meetings with FHWA staff designed to enable collaboration on efforts to promote pavement preservation and recycling.
AEMA President Todd Ryne, Vice President Bob Huitt, and Secretary/Treasurer Dan Koeninger, ARRA President Eric Baker, Vice President Jonathan Pease, and Director Jason Wielinski, and ISSA President Doug Hogue, Vice President Larry Tomkins, Secretary Chuck Ingram, Past President Rex Eberly, and Director Dan Patenaude, and Executive Director Kristi Olson met with the FHWA Office of Infrastructure’s Antonio Nieves Torres, FHWA Resource Center’s Jason Dietz, FHWA Office of Research, Development, and Technology’s Morgan Kessler, and FHWA Sustainable Pavement Program’s Milena Rangelov and Heather Dylla to discuss a variety of topics important to the industry.
A key meeting topic was sustainability with Rangelov and Dylla providing an overview of the FHWA’s Sustainable Pavements Program. Attendees were provided information on FHWA’s development of a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) benchmarking tool which can be used to assist in the evaluation of projects, including a quantification of environmental performance and opportunities for improvement. Rangelov also described the process for development of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) which provide a transparent, verified report use to communicate the environmental impacts of a specific material or product. Heather Dylla will be sharing more about the FHWA Sustainable Pavements Program with the membership via a presentation scheduled for the 2020 AEMA-ARRA-ISSA Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, next February 17-21.
FHWA’s Kessler also shared information on projects at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC), the research development and technology are of FHWA. TFHRC is bringing a project on Recycled Pavement RAP in Pavement Preservation Treatments to a close and will be presenting on the results in a webinar in late September or early October. Specifics will be added to the RoadResource.org calendar once available.
PPRA once again discussed RoadResource.org with FHWA committing to assist by providing FHWA events for calendar inclusion and via promotion of the site through their newsletter and peer sessions and meetings. Also discussed was the development by all three associations of a series of webinars on pavement preservation and recycling topics that will be hosted by FHWA. Each association has developed a list of topics and is working on a potential schedule to offer a webinar once a month for a full year.
AEMA once again requested FHWA assistance in promoting the AEMA/University of Arkansas Certificate Courses and noted that a fourth course was currently in development. Ryne noted that the 2020 AEMA-ARRA-ISSA Annual Meeting will once again include a meeting of the key industry organizations and invited FHWA participation.
Both ARRA and ISSA expressed appreciation for the support of their association events, the ARRA Semi-Annual Meeting and the ISSA Slurry Systems Workshop. FHWA continues to provide travel assistance for state department of transportation personnel to attend both events, enabling interaction with industry and relevant education on pavement preservation and recycling methods.
The groups plan to continue to meet bi-annually to foster cooperation and collaboration, with the next joint meeting planned for January 2020 in conjunction with the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting.
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