Ten years ago, the Buffalo Reef Task Force was created in order to figure out a way to remediate the shores of Lake Superior near Gay, Michigan, where decades of stamp sands accumulated and has so greatly affected the fisheries and has compromised a portion of shoreline from one of the largest freshwater bodies in the world.

The Task Force was given a very difficult responsibility of evaluating multiple ways to remove the stamp sand while keeping in mind the grand nature and cost any proposal might include to remove by some estimates 20 million tons. Multiple grants and proposals have not yielded a viable and cost-effective way to handle this problem. Until now.

After being tested by SME, a Michigan engineering firm approved M-DOT, the findings brought our team to realize that not only could we remediate it and clean the entire beach, but we could reuse the stamp sands for use in road construction.

The physical and chemical properties of stamp sands are superior to the competing limestone material — that has failed our roads miserably. Stamp sands are an angular, tight and compacting hard material that is nonporous … which means NO water absorption to freeze and thaw like other material allows. 

More importantly, additional studies have shown by both M-DOT and Illinois’ Department of Transportation that this material is also far less reactive to salt.  Adding to this material’s credibility, M-DOT has granted stamp sand its own ASI number, which means its approved for state funded projects.  

It gets better.

An M-DOT funded study of a road along the shores of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — which experiences some of the harshest and varying weather conditions — has confirmed stamp sand as the most superior road base.

As our team members who have decades of experience in the  precast concrete and cement industries will attest, it is well known that the base of the installation is just as or more important than the actual concrete. In fact, the road in this study has lasted for 50 years! Some would say that’s near impossible for a road in the UP to last that long virtually in tact. And the reason: its base is the very same stamp sand.

Furthermore, additional independent testing has been met with great reviews from not only the concrete industries, but aggregate companies and asphalt construction companies have seen the greatvalue of this product in there mix designs.