Council for the Rural Municipality of Hanover has decided to increase its gravel budget. Reeve Jim Funk says the municipality's gravel budget for this year was $1.3 million. Council has approved an increase of approximately $200,000, bringing their overall budget to $1.5 million. He notes the extra $200,000 will be drawn from the municipality's reserves. Funk says there are a couple of reasons for the move. First of all, he says this has been a difficult year for frost boils. "We've always dealt with frost boils," he clarifies. "This year's frost boils, they are hanging around a little bit longer." Funk says in some ways this year was worse for frost boils than other years because they were felt all over the municipality. He notes another reason for the increase is that the cost of gravel has climbed. Funk says just because they are spending more on gravel this year, that does not necessarily mean that they are using more product as a result. According to Funk, their Public Works crews spent the early part of summer dealing with frost boils. He notes that work is now largely complete, although there are some areas where roads are still a little bit soft. And though all roads are back open, Funk says there are probably still a few spots that could be tidied up with the grader and gravel added. Funk says their crews are now full swing into providing dust control, and that too is now largely complete except for another application on their haul routes. Meanwhile, Funk says the municipality has more than 500 miles of road to maintain. And, he says it costs approximately $500,000 to rebuild one mile, noting they can only afford to rebuild one or two roads each year. "Therefore it will take an awful long time to address all our roads if we want to make them compatible for all the traffic that we have," he says. Funk says times have changed since their roads were built many years ago, noting the increased traffic and heavier vehicles driving faster speeds.