Article content

There is a delicious irony in knowing that a 14-year-old from Dollard-des-Ormeaux may have found an amazingly simple remedy to Canada’s perennial pothole problem.

While governments spend millions annually in largely futile attempts to repair our rotting roadways, David Ballas, a Grade 9 student at West Island College, believes he may have come up with a cost-effective solution by mixing chicken feathers with asphalt to form a nearly impermeable surface.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Dollard teen discovers pothole solution Back to video

Don’t laugh: The French term for potholes is nids-de-poule, or chicken nests.

Ballas’s discovery took the form of a science project, which recently garnered first prize at his school’s science fair. That honour will allow him to represent WIC next month at the Montreal Regional Science Fair at Concordia University.

Ballas came up with the idea after his mother, Joy Struzer, blew a car tire after hitting a pothole in Dollard. It wasn’t the first time, either.

So Ballas consulted a few chemists, who encouraged him to look for “hydrophobic” materials, a scientific term for water repellent.

Ballas found his answer during an Internet search for waste materials with hydrophobic surfaces.

“The first thing that I found was chicken feathers. Actually, there are 5 million tonnes of them that are wasted every year, just in Quebec. It was a perfect idea.”