Please Don’t Fill Potholes With Clay

No one likes potholes, and unfortunately with the weather we have in the Twin Ports, they are quite prevalent.  So what is the solution?

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The City of Duluth has a webpage you can report street issues on HERE.  The City of Superior has one that is similar located HERE.  I bring this subject up and wanted to point people in the right direction for getting these issues addressed because of one of my neighbors.

Now, I'll preface this with saying that I know they were trying to do something to help everyone in the neighborhood and of course help themselves.  Our alley behind the house which several neighbors use to park in their garages and respective parking spaces is there.  We however have potholes that get worse every year, and as a resolution instead of buying some bags of blacktop patch, was to fill a big one with clay.  Yep, not even Class IV gravel, but instead it was straight-up Superior, WI clay.  While I applaud the thought, the delivery is a joke.

In case you haven't driven through clay like material before, I'll let you know that it gets on everything.  It sticks in the tread of your tires, which then kicks up all under your vehicle, and also leaves clay tracks as you drive along.  It's basically a huge mess, and while it helped with the prevention of bottoming out my suspension for a couple of days, it's now a hole again and is nothing but a pain.  So if you have potholes or other road issues that need to be addressed and you're not going to attempt to fix it yourself at least kind of the right way, at least reach out to your city and let them know where the issues are.  It's a much better solution that creating a big mess for your neighbors and not really fixing anything.  If my neighbors now think I'm an ass for pointing out how stupid it was to use clay, no matter how noble the thought was, there is a video above showing how to apply blacktop patch to potholes.