How the coronavirus is changing the way aggregate producers do business

By |  March 30, 2020
Photo by Kevin Yanik

Aggregate production largely continues throughout the United States, with producers implementing simple measures for employees to operate safely in this changed business environment. Photo: P&Q Staff

The changes aren’t dramatic, but they’re nonetheless ones Clay Albright and leaders at Caldwell Stone Co. deem necessary to keep employees, customers and others safe in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

For one, Caldwell Stone now has hand sanitizing stations on walls that were not there pre-pandemic. But the company, like a number of others within the aggregate industry, is also changing the way it shares tickets with customers.

“We’re printing tickets on our outside printer only so we’re not passing a ticket to a trucker,” says Albright, vice president of Caldwell Stone in Danville, Kentucky. “She (the scale operator) can print her own copy in-house and then tell [the trucker] to go grab your ticket at the side of the scale. Some customers are wanting us to email it to them.”

According to Albright, Caldwell Stone has long offered digital copies of tickets to customers. But he can see the digital component becoming more prevalent now that Americans are being asked to put six feet of space between themselves and others.

“I think [the Kentucky] Crushed Stone Association has been discussing with the state e-tickets and not doing signed tickets,” Albright says. “We’re looking at that.”

Houston-area River Aggregates is taking similar measures to keep customers safe, as well.

“In our scale house, we don’t have a way to remote ticket,” says Rob Van Til, managing partner at River Aggregates. “So we are having our scale clerks sign the tickets for the drivers. That way, there is not a back and forth with the driver.”

Then, of course, there are practices that are, perhaps, more for the short-term. Things such as continuously wiping down surfaces, social distancing during trailer talks, and eating meals in vehicles.

“Our company and all of the other Pennsylvania companies are putting in the CDC (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention)-recommend safety measures,” says Rod Martin, owner of Martin Stone Quarries in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. “Everybody is doing all of that now that we’re back on the [life-sustaining] list because we want to operate.”


For additional P&Q coverage related to the coronavirus, visit our dedicated webpage.

Kevin Yanik

About the Author:

Kevin Yanik is editor-in-chief of Pit & Quarry. He can be reached at 216-706-3724 or kyanik@northcoastmedia.net.

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