Residents of Vado, New Mexico, an unincorporated town of about 3,100 in the southern part of the state, were worried that private roads were in such poor shape that first-responders might not be able to reach some homes in an emergency. Because the roads are private, Dona Ana County wasn’t responsible for the repairs.
Help came in the form of 60 tons of recycled asphalt roofing, ground into a coarse aggregate that could be used to fill potholes. An organization called Communities in Action and Faith, working with the Environmental Protection Agency and the El Paso, Texas, company that donated the materials, arranged for delivery. As soon as the material was dumped on the side of the road, locals got to work with shovels and wheelbarrows.
The company that donated the material wasn’t named, but reaction to the story that aired on a local television station was far from positive. “People are all too happy to buy cheap land without services,” a poster named Gee Dubb commented, “but when they need something like roads, water and sewer, they want somebody else to pay for it.” Another wondered about the environmental implications of using shredded shingles to repair roads, and even complained events had taken place in Del Cerro, not Vado.
