Two Vicksburg streets became laboratories on Thursday as city officials examined two processes that could extend the life of city streets.

Assistant Public works Director Dane Lovell said Corrective Asphalt Materials of South Roxana, Ill., a company that specializes in products to protect and extend pavement life, demonstrated two materials to the city.

“They had a product called CRF, which is for older streets with cracks and other problems in it,” Lovell said. “They put a sealant on it and then they put on a fine aggregate or sand in it and let the traffic run over it. Basically, what it does is bring the street back to life and helps fill the crack and slow the deterioration of it.”

The other demonstration involved a substance called Reclamite, which is put on newly paved streets 1-3 years after they are paved to extend the life of the new paving.

“If you put in a new street that’s a 15- to 20-year new paving, it will add an extra five years to that paving,” he said.

Lovell said two streets were treated with both products; Sky Farm Avenue at Mission 66 and Sky Farm at Wabash. The older streets were coated with CRF, and the newer streets with the Reclamite.

Ward 1 Alderman Michael Mayfield said the materials were being tested to determine their ability to protect city streets from cracking and breaking from long periods of rainfall.

“We have a big problem with soil shifting; we have a big problem with utilities being washed over and some of the main reasons for that is water,” Mayfield said. “We have low-lying areas where water sits for a while, which breaks the paving up and gets in the soil under it.”

There is also tracking, or moving, water that affects the pavement, he said.

“If we could get it sealed good where we don’t have so much tracking or where water stays in the area, this would make a tremendous difference in what it would cost us to pave,” Mayfield said.

“Practically every area we have paved in the past 2-3 years, one way or another we have had to go in over freshly paved roads, either it’s going to be a utility or it’s going to be because of water tracking through certain areas or water being stationary in certain areas.”

If the tests indicate the materials will protect and extend the life of the streets, “We can allocate money for paving and allocate enough to have them sealed at the same time,” Mayfield said.