Reports in recent weeks confirmed that oil sands are adding carcinogens to Canada’s Athabasca River. The good news in the bad news is that the carcinogens are being carried in the air, and air pollution can be controlled.

Given the importance of the oil sands to our economy and our future, the needed solution must absolutely stop dust clouds carrying airborne particulates. Reportedly, the particulates travel 50 kilometers, depositing possible contaminants on melted snow and in the Athabasca River. Dust blowing off the surfaces of big expanses at mines can be controlled – better yet, prevented – but stopping airborne particulates must not create any unintended consequences as those reported about the Athabasca River. That is why it is critical that agencies and businesses trying to control the air pollution that develops at their sites verify the effects the dust suppressants they use can have on the environment.  Today we have certified and verified environmental technologies (EnviroKleen® and EK35®) available that can stop airborne particulars.

Oil sands development located on the west bank of the Athabasca River. 28 February 2008. Photographs courtesy of Erin Kelly, published in Mongabay.com.

This CNN Q&A regarding the war in Afghanistan struck a chord with me.  The environmental difficulties our troops encounter is really unimaginable for most of us. Just reading this list of questions and answers caused me to stop and pause, almost tasting the “choking sandstorms” soldiers weather in the summer. In just a few sentences regarding their challenges, you cannot but be affected by the condition of unpaved roads and the threat they pose to our troops; much is being done and much more needs done to counter these conditions.  Midwest has helped the military in the past with similar dust issues, as illustrated by Major Steven A. Baker in this article published in Engineer – The Professional Bulletin of Army Engineers.

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What I love about this business is that even after 35 years, you learn something new every day.

We took a look at the business we had not won this last year and realized that even though we knew we were proposing the best damn dust control solution for the given problem, customers had financial and budget issues, wanted a lower-cost alternative and were willing to forgo the longer-term cost savings for shorter term relief.

So we went and developed the best basic dust control solution at the most competitive price – Earth Armour™. Now our customers have an economical dust control solution in situations where temporary dust control is the objective rather than significant long term stabilization of the surface.

Earth Armour also fulfills our pledge to live our Midwest Values; “we will understand our customer’s requirements and deliver on our commitments.” I mention this in this blog because it does no good at all to have values if they are not actively practiced, everyday. So Earth Armour fits into our portfolio of products because it represents living a Value which is the foundation of everything we do as a company.

If you have a chance, learn more of exactly how Earth Armour does this by learning more on our website.

ReGeneration Productions is a company whose mission is to “create educational media that communicate the ideals and practice of urban sustainability.”  Their first endeavor, Mission:Sustainable, gives a “green” makeover to individuals needing to integrate sustainable practices into their lives. In a recent blog post titled “Working soil so that soil works for us,” ReGeneration states that they believe that “sustainability comes down to knowing that each choice we make has a ‘cost.’ The true ‘cost’ is a combination of the economic, social and environmental costs set against the offsetting benefits associated with each choice we make.”   This concept has interesting value to the commercial and industrial segment of our earth community.

As stewards of clean air, clean water and human health, our mission is to help make improvements in the work processes used by industrial customers that deliver economic, social and environmental benefits that exceed the cost of those improvements.  The main areas of our work revolve around dust control, especially pm10 and pm2.5 health risks; sediment and erosion control, which pose risks to water and aquatic life; and stabilization that provides the social benefit of smooth, pothole free roadways for area residents while delivering improved business results and operating performance.

The amazing thing is that this is absolutely, positively doable today. There is so much improvement possible with the choices we make in the commercial and industrial arena while providing significant economic and social and environmental returns that we often say, “the best choices will not cost, they will pay.”

There certainly is a lot of attention being devoted to coal ash ponds in the media today from the 60 Minutes broadcast to all the recent print coverage. The media of course uncovers a few bad eggs, but we know that the industry itself has been dealing with ash pond management for decades. At Midwest, we have helped utility customers be stewards of their ash ponds for over 30 years. In our company lore and history, everyone at Midwest recalls the phone call we received from a customer on Super Bowl Sunday, January 31, 1993. The Dallas Cowboys played the Buffalo Bills (Dallas won 52-17!), and our utility customer had major problem; their very large ash pond surface had dried and frozen, resulting in it becoming a major source of dust for the local area. I said “we will be there in six hours with at least one crew and equipment and more will follow. And we will not leave until the pond is secure.” For two weeks in sub-zero conditions, our team sealed the pond surface and stopped any and all dust from blowing from it.

So what does it take to continually manage and monitor your ash pond to avoid emergencies like this and those mentioned in the media?

-Spray a surface sealant on the pond that penetrates to the desired depth, creating a bonded matrix consisting of the sealant and the ash.

-This bonded matrix locks all fines and particles into the surface matrix and eliminates the root cause, free particles,  from becoming airborne and a nuisance or hazard to the local area.

-Maintain this application cycle on a yearly basis.

We can provide product and guidance for coal ash pond issues or do a complete turnkey installation.

I would like to share an interesting story with you. It represents an example of why I believe independent testing of company claims is very important for the purchasers of products from companies within our industry – during the bidding stage, and then again during the delivery stage.

For many years we have been supplying a customer with their requirements for a dust palliative and soil stabilizer. Our multi-year contract just expired and the user has issued a notice of solicitation for current bids to fulfill their requirements. Their solicitation included a detailed performance requirement for the product to pass CBR lab testing for a specific soil type to meet the standards for the customer’s needs. The specification matched our specific product, which they have been using for many years.

In the bidding, a competitor quoted a price approximately 20% below our quoted price. Part of the competitive vendor’s bid information included marketing and test data to prove that their product was equal to the product called for in the specification.

Shortly after the competitor was awarded the new multi-year contract for the delivery and installation of their brand name product, based on being the low bidder, they began communicating with producers of the basic raw materials stating they had just received a multi-year contract and needed to source significant volumes of a non-prime polymer emulsion. Within these communications there was no product chemistry specification that might indicate that what they were trying to source would meet the requirements as called for by the purchaser’s specification.

So here is the issue; since testing and documentation for the specification requirements is typically only required at the bidding stage, and product sampling is NOT required at the delivery stage to assure the exact product specified in the bid is being delivered, the bait and switch can take place and the customer will never know.

It will take due diligence on the part of the customer to catch this bait and switch activity. It will also take significant due diligence to confirm that the environmental soundness of whatever is actually delivered and installed on public roadways is in fact what was represented.

We know that price is an issue and customers need to assure their constituencies that they have done everything possible to obtain the best product solution for the lowest price. We also know customers do not want to “buy price” and close their eyes to product deficiency and possible environmental issues.

This is why it is in the best interest of both the community of users and principled industry leaders to expose such bait and switch activities. This is needed for both the protection of people and the environment in which these products might be used.

We are proud to once again be listed among the country’s top privately-owned environmental services companies on the Inc. 5000 released recently. Being in environmental services not only means we focus on doing things that are best for the planet, but we also help sustain life and health. Being in environmental services means contributing to the health and welfare of the communities in which our customers operate.

Below is a press release regarding this honor.

Midwest Moves Up Inc. 5000’s List of Top 100 Privately-Owned

Environmental Services Companies

And What is an Environmental Service Anyway?

Canton, Ohio – October 12, 2009 – Call the products and programs environmental services or call them by what they accomplish – dust suppression, erosion control, ice control – and the fact remains the same:

“Those of us in environmental services focus on doing things that are best for the planet, which in turn helps sustain life and health. It is an area that delivers the unique reward of knowing that the work you do for customers is also contributing to the health and welfare of our whole community,” said Midwest founder Bob Vitale.

Doing so has been the philosophy of Midwest, one of the largest dust control companies in the market, since it was founded 34 years ago when the word green conjured up images of grass and Crayola colors and Kermit the frog, not the environment. It is this commitment, Vitale believes, that helped Midwest land on the Inc. 5000’s list of the Top 100 in Environmental Services, moving up 18 places to 78^th from the prior listing in 2007.

Always seeking new ways to serve the needs of its clients and the environment Midwest is currently working:

-With the ERDC U.S. Army Corps  of Engineers to test the performance and safety of two new products

-With the Environmental Protection Agency and their public efforts about its ETV Certification so buyers can be more discerning about choosing products

-On a new conceptual method to evaluate and compare the environmental soundness and safety of products used on roads as dust palliatives

-Implementing  Fines Preservation Programs™ with no eco-toxicological impact across Alaska and Canada, going beyond dust control to bind unpaved surfaces into uniformly strong and durable structures that will not lose gravel, resulting in a life cycle cost reduction of  at least a 50%

-As part of a consortium of university research departments,  the Federal Highway Administration, USDA Forest Service, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and a handful of other manufacturers to identify current best practices for road dust control and stabilization and their evolution to future improvements

-Participating in community air quality conferences which are particularly valuable forums for community managers to share their road dust issues with industry experts who will in turn share best practices.

“It is not easy to grow and develop as individuals and as a business,” Vitale said “We know that success depends on the choices we make in each of those areas every day. We are proud of Inc.’s recognition because it is a statement that we have chosen well,” Vitale said.

Midwest lives in, manufactures for, and delivers Earth-conscious solutions to clients in the quarry, mining, construction, iron/steel and other industries whose success depends on overcoming dust, erosion, ice, soil stabilization and other operating issues.

Last year, our Soil Sement® product was used in the construction of the trailhead to the nation’s largest urban nature preserve, Scottsdale’s Lost Dog Wash Trailhead.  The project’s mission statement for the access areas was “to develop environmentally responsible public access areas that borrow from and blend into the natural desert landforms and landscape of each specific Preserve access location.”  A critical element of achieving their mission was salvaging and stockpiling the top four inches of native soil and native “desert pavement” cobble within the limits of disturbance for later redistribution. This allowed the project’s top-dressing to seamlessly integrate into the adjacent coarse and rugged desert floor. In addition, the parking lot areas and vehicular drives were constructed of Soil Sement stabilized decomposed granite, in lieu of traditional paving materials, to increase percolation and minimize surface runoff and heat gain. The Soil Sement-stabilized granite parking areas and trail surfaces utilized screened site soils to match the adjacent colors and textures of the desert floor.

Cast-in-place concrete seating and stabilized granite surface of the amphitheater

This site was recently awarded the top Honor Award by the American Institute of Architects, Western Mountain Region and also honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects.   The Professional Awards Jury 2008 comments capture the achievement of this collaborative effort of the landscape architect, architect and the Preserve staff:

“One of the best examples of environmental stewardship we’ve seen this year. The landscape architect is commended for reusing the plant material. The design is regionally appropriate and moves through the landscape with real restraint.”

Our contribution with Soil Sement was lead by EarthCare Consultants and its managing partner Marty Koether. Marty and EarthCare have lifelong experience in paving and 15 years  in stabilization utilizing native materials and innovative stabilization products.

The Lost Dog Wash Trailhead is a real demonstration of the use of modern technology to support the natural environment which is a vital lifestyle and conservation decision and the protection of fragile desert ecology.

See more details from the project in this article from GreenSource Magazine (this link launches a PDF).

EarthCare Consultants and Midwest add our congratulations to the project resources:

I recently read an article in Public Works Online, originally printed in Hernando Today (part of the Tampa Tribune), which described the use Federal stimulus funds allocated to the county to repave roads. Members of the community with massive potholes near their property and poor road conditions were irate with the choice by the county to use these funds to repave roads that they consider to still be in good shape but needing “preventative maintenance.”

There are alternatives to paving for secondary unpaved roads that can deliver high quality roads at 20% of the cost of paved roads. Stabilization products are available that provide new levels of structural performance for silty sand / soil materials.

New road stabilization products can deliver results for residents that live on unpaved roads at a ratio of 3 to 5 miles of dust free, pothole free unpaved secondary roads per mile of paved road.

Given the limited availability of funds for road construction, the enormous demand for road repairs on unpaved residential roads, and maintenance for existing paved roads, this new road stabilization method can deliver great value for federal and taxpayer dollars. 

Construction specifications for these stabilization materials can be widely employed with reasonable confidence in our experience. Below is a picture of an unpaved roadway using one of our soil stabilization products:

Stabilized Unpaved Residential Road