APRIL 2005 NEWSLETTER: WEBSITE EDITION
From
the Chairman
The mining world is continually changing. As the old-timers know, it experiences significant cyclical changes: changes on a world-wide scale, and changes localized and known to only a few. We can see some of the changes today in the world as China and India continue to grow economically, sucking up many of the world’s natural resources once shared by only a few well-developed nations. The increased demand is changing the world economy and the mining world even as we speak. Petroleum prices are making oil shale attractive, Illinois coal is beginning to come back into its own as scrubbing technologies improve. Locally, within our own section there are changes happening. Chicago area aggregate producers are increasingly looking toward underground operations as old operations play out and northeastern Illinois development continues to expand. There are few places other than our own Chicago Section of SME, where you can come to keep up with the changes. This is our goal, to keep you abreast of the changes and prepare you for the future. I encourage you to participate. --Gordie
From the Program ChairmanThis Meeting“HARD
ROCK CUTTING WITH ROADHEADERS -State
of the Art Roadheader Technology"
A
Brief Synopsis: Roadheaders were introduced to the mining and construction
industry in the early 1960s. The
main field of application is
tunneling in softer and partly friable rock
conditions and
production of
softer minerals like coal and other industrial minerals.
A further extension of this field of application is faced with two main
restrictions. Sharply rising
excavation cost with increasing rock strength and abrasivity. The risk of
failure in an application or in certain conditions, which were not or could not
be investigated to a sufficient extent. As
a consequence standard Roadheaders may unexpectedly exceed the limits of the
intended application and is therefore sometimes not an attracting choice. The first part of the technical presentation briefly describes
the history of Road-headers,
and illustrates the steps
taken to expand the traditional field of Roadheader application.
The second part will cover geotechnical
investigation on
parameters influencing productivity.
The third and main part
will focus on ATM105
operational results with detail figures from applications in Limestone,
Sandstone etc.... There will be opportunity for questions from the audience for Bruno after the talk. Bruno Reumueller is a native of Austria, and was educated there, finishing the college in Graz/Austria for Mechanical Engineering in 1982. He started at VOEST ALPINE in the Service Department that same year and moved to Sales and Marketing in 1992. For the last 23 years Herr Reumueller has been involved worldwide in the front line for underground mining and construction projects that have involved mechanical excavation. In 1995 & 1996, he was part of the management team when VOEST-ALPINE first established their US subsidiary. Currently he is working for VOEST-ALPINE in Austria, where he is the manager responsible for Roadheader Sales and Marketing for North America. Voest-Alpine Bergtechnik of Austria is currently part of Sandvik Mining and Construction of Sweden, which also includes Tamrock and Toro equipment, and Mission drilling products. Last MeetingBill
Huber and Hersh Hayden of Weir
International Mining Consultants gave a talk on New Miner Training and
the availability of skilled miners. They
presented some interesting statistics on the aging of our US workforce, in
particular in the mining sector, compared to the number of new jobs expected in
the working place over the next few years.
The percentage of older workers (those over 45 years of age) is an
increasing percentage of our workforce, with the percentage of younger workers
staying flat. They also pointed out
that while older workers get hurt less often, when they do get hurt the injuries
are more severe. They are
statistically off work for over 3 times as long as the under 25 workers for each
incident. And the ones getting hurt
more often are supervisors. The
number of open jobs in our workforce is projected to increase from 4 million to
10 million over the next 5 years. Upcoming SpeakersIn May – To Build Excellence at a Indiana Limestone Quarry by Y.J. Zheng, Chief Engineer of Indiana Limestone
GEM/PIE NewsNew
IDNR Division of Education “List Serve” – A Free Service
Educators
throughout Illinois now have the opportunity to obtain instant notification
about new products, scheduled workshops and many other events and items from the
Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) through the IDNR Division of
Education's new List Serve. The List Serve is available to IDNR staff for posting information about educational items from the IDNR. It will not replace the "New This Month" Internet report but will be another option to help IDNR staff reach educators throughout the state. If you post an item to the List Serve group, please be sure to include your contact information. If you can promote this new tool with educators whom you work with, it would be much appreciated. To
join the list, send an email with the text "subscribe education Your
Name" in the body of the message to the address imailsrv@idnrteachkids.com.
For example, you would enter "subscribe education May Apple" if your
name is May Apple. You may leave the list at any time by sending an email
containing the text "unsubscribe education" to the address imailsrv@idnrteachkids.com.
There is no charge to participate. If
you have questions, please contact Val Keener by phone at 217-785-0973 or by
e-mail at vkeener@dnrmail.state.il.us
. Submitted
by Linda Hiltabrand of the DNR
Section
News
Don't forget to pay your 2003-2004 dues. Click here for details. Click here for the 2003-2004 Officers Speakers for Upcoming Meetings?If
you would like to present a talk or have a subject matter that you are
interested in hearing presented at a meeting, please give
Frank Kendorski, of
Agapito Associates who is our Program Chair.
He can be reached at: e-mail:
frank@agapito.com New to the Chicago SME Website: Corporate Sponsor LinksThe
Chicago SME section has added a sponsor page of links
on our web site. The links will be
added for a small annual fee, with the money going solely to support our GEM
(Government, Education & Mining) Committee outreach efforts.
This money goes to sponsor a variety of teacher education, Mineral
Information Institute education materials, student scholarships and more.
Upcoming Meetings & Events
Member NewsGordie
Stevens Moves
Gordie Stevens has recently joined Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc. in Downers Grove as a Principal. CEC is an engineering and consulting firm headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gordie, a Hydrogeologist and Licensed Professional Geologist in IL, IN and WI will continue to work with the mining industry as well as other engineering and environmental projects as he has done for the past 25 years. He can be reached at (630) 963-3753 or by e-mail at gstevens@cecinc.com . The CEC website can be found at: http://www.cecinc.com/ Practical
Environmental Consultants Moves Offices
Long
time Chicago Section member Doug Hambley’s firm has relocated their offices.
Practical Environmental Consultants, Inc. (or PEC) is a 20-person firm specializing in environmental
work, especially leaking underground storage tank (LUST) site investigations and
remediation, environmental Site Assessments, spill prevention, and emergency
response supervision. The
new offices are located at: 1305
Remington Road, Suite A Schaumburg, IL 60173 New
Phone No: 847-519-3430 New Fax No.: 847-519-3431 The
new location is just west of Meacham, within the same mail zip code but into the
847 area code instead of the 630 area code for the old phone numbers. Hambley may be reached via e-mail at dfhambley@comcast.net New MembersNew member Neil
J. Silins is with EMS Environmental Inc. His company offers environmental
assessments, site inspections and occupational safety and health training for
environmental professionals and contractors.
He can be reached at 773-561-6779 or via e-mail at
Industry NewsNew
Aerial Imagery Source
This
has been the 'buzz' in GISland for a week: high resolution satellite
imagery of your house and neighborhood from http://maps.google.com/.
Keyhole is a CIA spy satellite that has been adapted to civilian use
(they have lots of ways to reduce resolution for civilian use). I tried it
for a couple of addresses (Urbana, Cincinnati) and got disappointing
results - not Keyhole imagery, lesser resolution. However, I tried an
address in St. Louis, and did get the high resolution quality result
similar to shown below. Not all satellite imagery is from Keyhole, some appears
to be from other sources. I could not copy/paste imagery except by
screen capture (you will see faint "Google" in background).
However, you can print the imagery.
A
suburb shot from Chris Stohr. For
more information contact Chris Stohr of the ISGS at stohr@isgs.uiuc.edu
Submitted
by Dr. Chris Stohr of the ISGS Below
is a screen grab a close up of Vulcan’s McCook Plant. Outside of the area I grabbed was a reference to Imagery
@2005 DigitalGlobe, EarthSat. Can
anyone from Vulcan confirm that this is a 2005 image for me? --Rick Ackermann
Vulcan’s
McCook plant Mine
Director Named for
Illinois Office of Mines & Minerals
Joe
Angleton, 58, of DuQuoin, is the new IDNR director of Mines and Minerals.
Angleton has been involved in the coal industry since 1969.
In his new position, he will oversee mine safety and training, abandoned
mine land reclamation, and aggregate, oil, gas and explosives regulation. Angleton
began his mining career at Eagle One mine in Shawneetown.
In 1977, he assumed the first of several state offices with the United
Mine Workers of America. Angleton
has been Compensation Counselor, Secretary-Treasurer and District 12 President
for the UMWA. The
IDNR can be contacted at: IDNR-Office
of Mines & Minerals 424
W. Main, Suite 3 Ottawa,
IL 61350 815/433-7050 Submitted
by Linda Hiltabrand of the DNR To Contact Your US
Senators & Representatives:
This information came in
with e-mails relating to the Highway Bill (TEA-21) votes that just happened in
Washington. However, you just might
want to express your opinion are other issues relating to the industry or from
personal interest. Remember that
since so FEW people contact their elected representatives about each issue,
every letter, e-mail or phone call on a given issue is said to represent several
thousand voters. That said, if you
contact the offices
Senators: Barack Obama, D
(202) 224-2854 Richard Durbin, D
(202) 224-2152 For
e-mail to either Senator, go to http://www.senate.gov/ then click
on either “choose a State” or “senators” Representatives: See
the link to http://www.house.gov/ And look on the left for the link “Write your Representative”. You will need to know your zip code –all 9 digits – but there is a link to get the extra 4 digits. On
Mercury – (The pollutant, that is –Not a racehorse)
Despite coal fired power
plants’ status as the largest source of U.S. airborne mercury, they account
for a tiny fraction of precipitated mercury, according to EPA estimates.
"Even if your only source of exposure comes from eating freshwater fish,
remember only 3% of that mercury comes from U.S. power plants," said
Jeffrey Holmstead, the U.S. EPA's top air-quality official. One source recalls hearing that China accounts for 48% of the
airborne Hg in the US. Pieced together by Rick Ackerman News
and Rumors From the (Chicago) Bushes
Rumor from last meeting:
A Goodyear tire distributor out west has less than a dozen 992 tires left
for the remaining of the YEAR that are not already under purchase order….
And one operation that runs 200 ton haul trucks is being allocated a
total of 5 new tires for the rest of the year.
Caterpillar in Aurora is selling everything they are making before it
gets off the line. Production is
apparently limited by the quantity of steel and other raw materials coming in
the front door… including tires. How long will this situation keep up? This is
what a lot of people are trying to figure out.
Looks like at least another year, and maybe longer, provided the Chinese
development locomotive keeps going full speed ahead. Information provided by Old No-Name Some-Hair
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