The Rural Municipality of Hanover will be using recycled tires to try and fix a road near Grunthal. Wes Fehr is Manager of Works and Operations. He explains that they were approached by a contractor called Engineered Rubber Aggregate (ERA). The company takes tires that are at the end of their life and turns them into Tire Derived Aggregate (TDA). According to their website, the product can then be used for such things as road construction, drainage systems, or backfill. "What they do is they recycle used tires into kind of a rubber aggregate to use that in road base material," adds Fehr. According to Fehr, Hanover will be working with ERA through a grant from Tire Stewardship Manitoba. He adds they are anticipating the grant should fund this project entirely. Fehr says they have chosen to use the product to help fix a portion of Road 26N, east of Road 24E, southwest of Grunthal. "We're looking at doing a frost boil road section with this rubber aggregate material as the base," he notes. "Other areas have tried this and were seeing success with dealing with frost boils in that way." Fehr says they will perform a test section on this road in 2026 and see how that holds up before proceeding with any major work. Fehr explains that the section of road they have chosen is a heavy haul route for some gravel pits in the Grunthal area. "We figured that would be a good section to test the durability of this type of base structure," he adds. According to Fehr, while this product has not been tried in the immediate area, it has been used at several sites in the Rural Municipality of Springfield. "They are stating that there has been success with that," he points out. Fehr says the product has been used more in western Manitoba by numerous municipalities. Meanwhile, he notes that frost boils continue to be a major concern each spring in Hanover. With all of the recent rain and knowing that the water table is quite high in this part of the province, Fehr says municipal officials are hoping that water levels can drop before freeze-up.