Ice cream, info served up at local quarry

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

SCOTT — It was hot … it was dusty … but those who came to the Scott Quarry on Richey Road in northwestern Van Wert County got the chance to learn a lot about the company — and down some ice cream to cool off.

Stoneco and its parent company, The Shelly Company, invited area residents to the quarry as part of a celebration of Ohio Aggregates and Industrial Minerals Awareness Week.

The event, billed as an “ice cream social,” with cake and ice cream and drinks provided, was more like a “show and tell,” allowing local residents to learn about the quarry, with several displays — and even a video showing stone being blasted out of the quarry walls — while company officials were on hand to answer questions.

“Best thing in the summer is (an) ice cream social, so that’s where that idea came from,” said Robin Kraner, who is involved in quality control at the quarry, but also conducts tours of the facility for area students and others interested in learning about the quarry. “So we’re just basically celebrating Ohio Aggregates Awareness Week.”

The “aggregates” part of the week was the focus at Scott Quarry, originally Union Quarry when it was founded around the turn of the 20th century. Aggregates, basically another word for gravel, are the broken bits of stone used in concrete and road construction.

Road construction is a business the quarry’s current owner knows well, since The Shelly Company is involved in road construction projects all over the state, including many of those in Van Wert County, such as the Shannon Street reconstruction and a paving project on U.S. 30.

The company also owns nearly 100 facilities around the state, including a number of quarries and asphalt operations that provide raw and finished materials for the company’s projects.

Road construction is a seasonal job, though, meaning that workers are often laid off during the winter months, and that includes quarry workers as well. However, the past 10 months have been a different story, mostly because of wind turbines being installed as part of the Blue Creek Wind Farm.

“This started last fall and they have been going gangbusters for the past 10 months,” said John Dibert, vice president of aggregate operation for The Shelly Company. He added that the Scott Quarry has been on 16-hour and even 24-hour days to keep up with demand created by both road projects and wind turbine construction. The production schedule has also allowed workers to log lots of overtime hours as well – which has also provided a positive financial wallop for their wallets.

“It’s been a boom for us, it’s been a good deal for us, a good deal for the workers,” said Dibert, noting that the company even had to bring in portable asphalt and ready-mix plants to the local quarry to keep up with product demand. “It’s been huge for this quarry.”

Providing stone for the various projects has been pretty much seamless, though, Dibert said, crediting quarry manager Rick Welch, a 20-year quarry veteran, and Todd Rittenhouse for making sure production needs were met.

That hasn’t been easy, though, since the quarry needed to produce four times as much stone the past 12 months — from 250,000 tons to an estimated 1 million tons from last September to this September — as is produced in a normal year.

That’s also led to a big increase in truck traffic to and from the quarry, Welch said, noting that the quarry at times has transported 10,000 tons of products a day in trucks that handle only 16-18 tons per trip.

Although Stoneco employees will likely miss it, it’s a situation that’s not likely to last long, Dibert said. “It’s tailing off fast,” he noted, adding that the last wind turbine bases will be poured this week, which would effectively end the ready-mix portion of the project.

Among those invited to the event was State Representative Lynn Wachtmann, who said he enjoyed learning more about the operation — although he was not as happy about the temperature outside.