NEDERLAND — Nederland Town Staff believe they have identified a suitable upgrade to the Streets Department’s costly and laborious road stabilization and dust suppression efforts—a new organic enzyme-based product named Perma-Zyme. The Board of Trustees (BOT) recently approved a pilot program to test the product on three specific roads.

On July 21, 2026, Trustees unanimously approved the Streets Department utilizing $30,000 in their budget—specifically allotted for dust suppression—to engage in a pilot program with Substrata, the manufacturer of Perma-Zyme. 

The pilot program was originally proposed back in October of 2025, and was for the application of Perma-Zyme on parts of Alpine Drive and Navajo Trail. The program would have cost the Town a total of $19,995. At that time, the Board decided to table the matter as they directed Town Staff to complete additional research. 

Streets Manager Josh Davis and Sustainability Coordinator Cass Grady returned to the BOT on July 7, 2026, with an eight-page report that detailed every aspect of the program, from the product treatment process and application technique to the risk assessment and post-application evaluation plans.

Two weeks after reviewing the report, Trustees voted to approve the pilot program. In the nine months' delay the cost of the program jumped to $29,948, with the major change being the inclusion of Forest Road to the two other streets planned for Perma-Zyme application. 

The product 

According to Substrata, Perma-Zyme is made with food grade materials and uses organic enzymes—as opposed to salt and polymers—to “strengthen the bond between clay soil particles in road material” in order to create a more hardened, water-resistant road surface that has the potential to suppress dust and provide a service life of up to 10 years.

Perma-Zyme is also described as a soil stabilizer with a pH of 4 to 5.5, and is diluted in water before being applied to the roadway, therefore creating a water-resistant hardened road surface that experiences “minimal leaching.” 

Information regarding Perma-Zyme and the pilot program was presented to the Sustainability Advisory Board (SAB) back in September of 2025. The SAB reviewed a letter from Substrata’s CEO, Royal Marty, stating that their product is eco-friendly, non-toxic, and non-hazardous. They also reviewed a Safety Data Sheet for the product.

That data sheet helped to assure the SAB that the product primarily consists of organic enzymes and requires minimal PPE precautions in order to safely handle and work with it, which prompted them to vote 5 to 1 in support of the pilot program. 

Town Staff maintains that Perma-Zyme is being pursued as a means to mitigate the runoff of road base material from Nederland’s gravel roads, which clogs nearby culverts and causes unnecessary labor and maintenance costs. It is believed that the product can provide road binding and dust reduction while avoiding the environmentally unsafe materials often found in traditional road stabilizers. 

Davis and Grady met with representatives from Substrata back in September 2025, and witnessed first-hand that Perma-Zyme adhered well to road soil samples from four different locations throughout Nederland. 

“Nederland has historically avoided magnesium chloride, road salts, and similar stabilizers in its gravel road base because of environmental concerns related to roadside vegetation, drainageways, and downstream water quality,” Davis’ and Grady’s report reads.

“While that approach has environmental benefits, the operational tradeoff is increased maintenance. Some Nederland gravel roads lose crown and road base after rain, snowmelt, and freeze-thaw conditions, requiring repeated grading, aggregate replacement, ditch work, and culvert clearing. Staff has been looking for a way to reduce that recurring maintenance burden without introducing the environmental concerns associated with salt-based stabilizers.”

The program 

because Perma-Zyme is a proprietary product and its performance is based on “road material, application method, drainage, traffic, and weather conditions,” Town Staff is not recommending townwide use of Perma-Zyme, rather just a pilot program to test the product’s performance under Nederland’s unique conditions. 

The program includes the application of the product on approximately 0.88 miles of Alpine Drive, 1.36 miles of Navajo Trail, and 0.45 of Forest Road—totalling 2.69 miles altogether. Those three streets were selected because they require the most recurring maintenance, from the weather causing potholing or from speeding vehicles causing “washboarding.” 

Davis notes that choosing three of the Town’s most challenging roads will be the best “stress test” for Perma-Zyme and will help to determine whether the product can perform well on less challenging roads, and therefore whether it is worth pursuing as a townwide solution.  

As for the Perma-Zyme application process itself, Substrata employees will be providing oversight regarding the treatment of the product, as well as the “product ratio, treatment depth, and compaction process.”

The Streets Department will be preparing the section of roads by pulling away any existing road base material from the road edges. They will also be responsible for applying the product through use of their water truck; redistributing the treated material across the roadway; re-establishing the road crown; and rolling over the road with the Town’s “walk-n-roll” and steel drum compactors.  

During the application process, the Streets Department team will be providing traffic management. The roads will not be fully closed, but vehicles will need to be stopped periodically for certain operations, including spreading the material and compaction.  

Additionally, temporary “Local Traffic Only” signs will be displayed in the area during the 72-hour “curing period” after Perma-Zyme has been applied, and residents will be asked to limit travel on the specific sections of treated road.  

“Staff will use Everbridge, the Town website, social media, and direct notice to affected residents to communicate the work schedule, access expectations, and curing period,” the Town report stated.

The concerns 

When the BOT originally discussed the Perma-Zyme pilot project back in October, they presented several concerns regarding the product’s ingredients and viability. They directed Town Staff to reach out to Substrata and neighboring municipalities who engaged in similar programs to gather more research. 

The report from Davis and Grady that came before Trustees on July 7 highlighted that Town Staff had been in contact with Summit County, Utah; the Town of Mead, Colorado; Gunnison County, Colorado; and Laramie County, Wyoming.

Davis visited Wyoming to inspect their roadway that had been treated with Perma-Zyme and noted that it was in good condition, even though it had been two years since the initial application. He also noted that vegetation was growing healthily in the ditches adjacent to the roadway. 

Gunnison County, however, reported washboarding, raveling, and dust on the three miles of roadway they had tested with Perma-Zyme; though it was reported that Substrata representatives were not present to oversee that application, and that the product “may not have been applied at the recommended six-inch depth.”

The BOT previously inquired about reports out of Summit County, Utah, that their roadways were experiencing slippery and muddy conditions after treatment with the product. Trustees also asked how winter weather will affect the treated roads. 

Town Staff learned that the roadway hardened as expected once Summit County had regraded and properly compacted some sections. As for winter weather, Substrata representatives maintain that their product will not make the roads any more slippery, but also will not act as a de-icer or in any way improve icy conditions. 

The biggest concern raised by both the BOT and SAB was over the fact that Perma-Zyme contains proprietary ingredients, meaning Substrata was under no obligation to disclose that information.  

Staff reportedly requested from Substrata that they disclose the ingredients under a non-disclosure agreement, but the company declined, leaving the Town with just the Safety Data Sheet and the letter from Substrata’s CEO as evidence of Perma-Zyme’s eco-friendliness. 

This led directly to the Town’s decision to propose a pilot program limited to just three sections of three roads, and to institute certain accountability measures. 

The accountability 

In addition to limiting the scope of the pilot, Town Staff will also take SAB’s recommendation to monitor the potential impacts to the vegetation nearby to the application sites, and will take the BOT’s recommendation to concurrently monitor specific gravel roads that are similar to those being treated with Perma-Zyme—3rd Street and Doe Trail—so “post-application performance can be evaluated against baseline conditions.”

Regarding concerns as to how traffic and weather will affect the treated roads during the mandatory 72-hour curing period, Davis responded that the Streets Department will schedule the treatment during the “best available weather window,” and that any disturbance of the surface should be repairable with a “light blade and recompaction” process. 

The report from Town Staff also detailed the risk management being applied to concerns of winter weather, of improper application of the product, and of the product potentially underperforming. Though the Town will be monitoring the treated roads throughout the winter as part of their overall evaluation of the product, Substrata’s expertise will be required in order to assess any issues with Perma-Zyme from application issues or underperformance. 

An evaluation plan was also provided, which specified that the Town will be using “photographs, maintenance records, field observations, and comparison to untreated gravel roads” as baseline evidence. 

Town Staff will be evaluating the integrity of the road surface; preservation of the road crown; potential washboarding, pothole formation, and dust generation;  any aggregate loss; any erosion of ditches and culverts; drainage issues; impacts to vegetation; the need for further maintenance; and the performance of the treated roads after rain, after winter, and after the spring snowmelt. 

“Because road stabilizers are highly dependent on local material, moisture, compaction, drainage, traffic, and climate conditions, staff will evaluate the pilot based on observed performance in Nederland rather than relying solely on vendor representations or results from other jurisdictions,” the report read. 

Final decision

The decision to contract with Substrata for a pilot program was made so that Town Staff can evaluate not just how Perma-Zyme performs given Nederland’s unique road conditions, but also whether the expensive road treatment will more than pay for itself by reducing the long-term costs of “repeated grading, aggregate replacement, culvert clearing, equipment use, staff time, water use, fuel, and dust suppression.”

Originally, Davis and his team had planned to start the treatment and application process in October, 2026, though exact dates have yet to be scheduled and announced. The Town’s intention is to monitor the treated roads throughout a full winter and spring in order to determine whether Perma-Zyme’s use will be expanded townwide.