July 15, 2006

The Stripe Hog® was used to remove nearly 50 gallons of yellow traffic paint spilled on Columbia, TN roads

Looked at from just the right angle, abstract art lovers might find beauty in the paint spills that now cover patches of roads in Maury County.

The streams of yellow paint are not the work of a local artist, however. Instead, the nine-mile stretch of yellow running from Nashville Highway to Rutherford Lane is the result of a ruptured 275 gallon tank leaking minor to heavy amounts of the gooey substance around Columbia.

A nine mile stretch of yellow paint spilled onto U.S. Highway 31 from a ruptured tanker truck Wednesday night.

A truck driver for Mid-South Transport of Memphis, lost nearly 50 gallons of the yellow paint used to stripe roads sometime around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night. He was delivering the paint from the Sherwin Williams Company to Interstate Road Management. Interstate, based in Oak Harbor, Ohio, has been in the area for the last three weeks painting roads in Maury County and the surrounding area.

Crews from Florida-based Waterblasting.com got started Saturday morning removing paint spilled on a nine-mile stretch of Columbia roadways.

The company uses a unique device called a “Stripe Hog®” (pictured right) which is manufactured by its Waterblasting Technologies division. The Stripe Hog uses 40,000 pounds per square inch of waterblasting to remove all types of pavement markings from roads and runways.

“This paint spill, in its worse spots, is very similar to runway markings because of their size, said company marketing director Dave Friday.

Friday did not give an estimate of exactly how long the cleanup would take but said he was confident it would be thorough and relatively quick.

“We’ll be there however long it takes to do the job right,” Friday said. “A benefit to the drivers and citizens of Columbia is that our process will be the quickest, cleanest way of removing these markings. With this equipment, we’ll have the lanes closed down for a minimal amount of time, and it will allow drivers to carry on as normal in the shortest amount of time possible.”

Friday explained the Stripe Hog® has a built in recovery system which immediately vacuums up the water and paint and leaves the road surface clean and nearly dry with little or no damage to asphalt or concrete surfaces. It was developed eight years ago and has been used in 30 states and six overseas countries.