These are good times

These are good times – from a demand standpoint – for quarry operators and other producers of aggregates used by the construction and road building industries.

Attendees of the National Aggregates Association (NAA) Convention, held in San Francisco in mid-January, learned that economic forecasts and highway spending budgets are dictating that the strong demand climate should continue into 2000 and beyond.

But with the demand opportunities have come supply challenges. Both speakers and attendees at NAA sessions alluded to the problem of quarries being tapped out sooner than planned due to strong demand, and to problems securing a sufficient labor force to meet expanded production figures.

The NAA, based in Silver Spring, Md., also warned its members that federal Clean Water Act expansions being studied could make obtaining permits for new quarries and sand production sites even tougher. According to attorney Robert G. Szabo, Van Ness Feldman P.C., Washington, a pending EPA proposal will "require new and expanded facilities in ‘impaired waters’ to ‘offset’ their pollutant loads by obtaining pollutant reductions of 150% from another source before they can obtain an operating permit." Some 40% of America’s waterways are defined by the EPA as "impaired," according to Szabo.

The good news for producers of crushed concrete and secondary aggregates is that the tight supply conditions that have created a waiting market for their products do not appear to be lifting.

Concrete culled from demolished buildings and torn up roadways – especially in metropolitan regions—should continue to provide a cost-effective aggregate source, especially with fuel costs being one of the few inflationary factors in the 2000 economy.

A publication focusing on environmentally sound building practices has placed "products made from environmentally attractive materials" atop its "green building" standards list.

Environmental Building News (EBN), Brattleboro, Vt., is providing the criteria in its January 2000 issue for use by architectural specifiers and builders, thus offering a potential boost to products made from processed C&D materials.

The list has five criteria headings, with the "environmentally attractive materials" heading listed first of the five. Sub-categories under that heading include "products with post-consumer recycled content," "products with post-industrial recycled content," and "salvaged products."

The catalog itself has more than 1,200 listings that have been compiled by EBN. "For a green building product directory to be most useful to specifiers and builders, users have to understand why a product is included, and they have to trust the integrity of the selection process," says EBN publisher Alex Wilson.