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Webinar to outline transportation bill details
Jack Schenendorf, an attorney with the law firm Covington & Burling LLP and a staff member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, will lead an NSSGA webinar July 30 at 3 p.m. EDT that outlines what’s in the transportation bill for your business these next two years. Schenendorf, who has served on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for nearly 25 years, will focus on the bill’s funding, program reforms and streamlining provisions. Keep Reading
Graniterock CEO’s death ruled an accidental drowning
Placer County (Calif.) deputies confirmed earlier this week that Graniterock CEO Bruce Woolpert’s death was an accidental drowning, The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. Although there were no witnesses, an investigation concluded that while near North Lake Tahoe, Woolpert fell and hit his head June 24 either on a powerboat or his untied dinghy. He landed in the water. A woman spotted Woolpert's dinghy drifting with no one in it about 200 ft. from the powerboat. She then spotted Woolpert, who was floating face down in the water. North Lake Tahoe firefighters found Woolpert in about 2 ft. of water, and they declared him dead at the scene. He had a visible head injury, which led investigators to believe he struck his head on one of the boats. Sgt. David Hunt says Woolpert was not wearing a life jacket, but he doubts a life jacket would have saved Woolpert because he was floating face down. "It appears, in its entirety, to be an accidental drowning," Hunt says. Photo: Gratinerock Keep Reading
New standard sought to distinguish safe, harmful fines
A proposed ASTM International standard will be used to distinguish between harmful and non-harmful fines in construction aggregate. A test method to rapidly determine the methylene blue value for fine aggregate and mineral filler is being developed by a normal weight aggregates subcommittee, which is part of an ASTM International committee on concrete and concrete aggregates. According to Eric Koehler, research and development director at W.R. Grace and Co., the test method will be used, once approved, to qualify new material sources and for production quality control by personnel at aggregate producers, ready mix concrete producers and asphalt concrete producers. Koehler says this particular method does not involve the titration and visual assessments typically associated with such testing. He adds that the test can be performed in the field in about 10 minutes. “Once it has been approved, the proposed standard will enable the use of a wider range of sands and limestone fillers in concrete, while also ensuring that these aggregates are of high quality,” Koehler says. Keep Reading
Irving Materials purchases competing operation
Irving Materials Inc. has acquired the assets of Rock Industries Inc., The Indianapolis Business Journal reports. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Rock Industries operates quarries in Peru and Plymouth, Ind., producing more than 500,000 tons of stone, sand and gravel each year. The company has 20 full-time employees. Keep Reading
Main addresses concerns of aggregate associations
MSHA Assistant Secretary of Labor Joe Main outlined a number of initiatives and reforms his agency has undertaken over the last two years in remarks Monday to several Midwest state aggregate associations. He also reflected on the disaster that killed 29 miners at the Upper Big Branch in April 2010 and described how the accident forced MSHA to reexamine safety and health. “It unquestionably shook the very foundation of mine safety and health, and caused all of us to take a deeper look at the weaknesses in the safety net expected to protect the nation’s miners,” Main says. “There has been an intense examination of that tragedy, and MSHA and the industry have undergone significant change as we have sought to find and fix deficiencies in mine safety and health.” Main points to an 8-percent decline in citations and orders issued from 2010 to 2011, as well as a 12-percent decline in the number of significant and substantial (S&S) citations and orders, as a sign of improvement throughout the industry.… Keep Reading
Operation fined $80K for emissions violations
New Hampshire-based Plourde Sand and Gravel Inc. has been fined $80,000 for not obtaining proper air emission permits for diesel generators it operated in two different cities. The Concord (N.H.) Monitor reports that Plourde Sand and Gravel has a history of environmental violations, including failing to keep proper records, installing generators without permission and being unresponsive to government requests, according to Allen Brooks, senior assistant attorney general for New Hampshire. As Brooks tells The Concord Monitor, the company operated more than an allowed number of diesel generators at its offices and that several generators were not registered. Brooks also says some generators were not operated properly, with exhaust stacks pointed downward or blocked with a "rain cap." Under a settlement signed last month, Plourde Sand and Gravel was fined $80,000, with $20,000 of that amount to be suspended if the company does not commit a violation over a three-year period. Plourde Sand and Gravel also must pay overdue fees for fines, which Brooks says amounts to about $18,000. Keep Reading
Ohio promoting aggregates awareness this week
The Ohio General Assembly has designated this week as Ohio Aggregates and Industrial Minerals Awareness Week. The goal is to educate the public, increase awareness and recognize the important contributions of the state's aggregates and industrial minerals industry to construction and transportation, as well as to the state's economic viability. The general assembly also plans to recognize the aggregates industry's environmentally responsible stewardship of the state's resources. Keep Reading
DOL sues mining companies for unpaid penalties
The U.S. Department of Labor, on behalf of MSHA, has filed complaints in U.S. district courts against mining companies in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire to collect $267,724 in unpaid civil penalties resulting from federal mine safety violations. The complaints also seek injunctions and cash performance bonds from each mine operator to guarantee future penalties are paid. “Over a period of several years, these employers either reneged on promises to pay these penalties, or they failed to contest them and then chose to ignore them,” says Michael Felsen, the Labor Department’s regional solicitor of labor for New England. “Mine operators cannot be permitted to violate mine safety laws and simply refuse to pay the penalties assessed for those violations. The Department of Labor will use all the tools available, including litigation in federal court, to pursue these scofflaws.” The first complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut against American Industries Inc. in Jewett City, Conn., seeks to collect unpaid civil penalties of $24,628 assessed against… Keep Reading
House passes bill defining aggregates as strategic, critical
NSSGA reports a bill to speed development on federal lands of strategic and critical minerals, including aggregates, passed the House on Thursday. Development would be sped up by limiting the review duration of drilling permits and requiring concurrent rather than sequential consideration. The bill in this case, the National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act, would require the secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior to more effectively develop domestic sources of minerals of "strategic and critical importance." As NSSGA reports, the text of the bill indicates this would include "minerals that are necessary...to support domestic manufacturing, agriculture...and transportation infrastructure.” Keep Reading
