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Crews were well-equipped with machines for the job.
Crew Prepares Site for Rex Lumber’s $110M Sawmill By Irwin Rapoport
Construction on a $110 million new Rex Lumber sawmill and dimensional lumber production plant in greater Troy, Ala., started on July 17, 2018, and is expected to be completed in the spring of 2019 with operations beginning in June. The 80-acre earthwork and site preparation was recently completed in 46 days by W.S. Newell & Sons Inc. The new facility is expected to create around 110 jobs and operate with two 40-hour shifts, producing more than 240 million board ft. annually. The plant is permitted to produce 360 million ft. per year. Rex Lumber additionally owns and CEG CORRESPONDENT
operates three sawmills in Florida and Mississippi, which produce more than 575 million board ft. per year. The project also will see the construction of a new threelane industrial access road (2,700-ft. long) funded by the Alabama Industrial Access Committee and the Alabama Department of Transportation, as well as the resurfacing of 2.5 mi. of Orion Road to U.S. 231 just north of Troy. More than 140 log trucks carrying heavy loads are expected to go back and forth from the mill daily, as well as a similar number of additional trucks hauling finished lumber products and the by-products chips and bark. A $1 million Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is covering
the cost of the 5-mi. resurfacing, with the Pike County Commission contributing an additional $500,000 to the project. The road work is expected to start in spring of 2019 and be completed in June of 2019. “This project is further proof that the construction and timber industries are on the upswing in Alabama and are creating new job opportunities for our residents,” said Gov. Kay Ivey. “I am pleased to support this project as part of my administration's commitment to encourage new or expanding business and industry in our state and provide jobs.” The plant, located on a 294-acre site, will have a 150,000see SAWMILL page 6
Developer Outlines Timeframe to Finish Alabama Nuclear Plant HOLLYWOOD, Ala. (AP) — A businessman says that he’s assembled a group of nuclear engineering and construction firms to finish building an idled nuclear plant in northern Alabama in the next five to six years. Former Chattanooga, Tenn., developer Franklin Haney’s company, Nuclear Development LLC, was the top bidder when the Tennessee Valley Authority auctioned the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in 2016.
Haney said he has unnamed parties interested in buying the entire electricity output of the Unit 1 reactor at Bellefonte. He’s looking for buyers of power from the second reactor at the plant, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported. Canada-based SNC-Lavalin is working with Haney to oversee completion of the twin-reactor plant. Bellefonte’s projected completion cost is far below the projected
$20 billion or more to finish the Plant Vogtle nuclear facility in Georgia, said Preston Swafford, the chief nuclear officer of SNCLavalin. “Only about 20 percent of this project is new work,” Swafford added, noting that Bellefonte’s projected completion cost is far below the projected $20 billion or more cost for Plant Vogtle. He said the Alabama project is far different from construction of the Georgia facility or a failed
nuclear project at the V.C. Summer Nuclear Station in South Carolina. Two additional nuclear reactors at the South Carolina facility were abandoned a year ago without ever generating power despite a decade of planning and construction. “We’re not talking about building a new plant from the ground up. One of the reactors here was once 95 percent done, and fuel was even loaded here, so we’re confident it can be finished using proven designs and approved tech-
nologies.” Completion of the Alabama plant would have an economic output of more than $12 billion and create more than 8,000 jobs, the Jackson County Development Authority has projected. The plant is about 50 mi. southwest of Chattanooga. (This story also can be found on Construction Equipment Guide’s website at www.constructionequipmentguide.com.)
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Construction Equipment Guide • Alabama State Supplement • www.constructionequipmentguide.com • September 12, 2018 • Page 3
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New Sawmill Calls for New Roads, Creates Jobs in Troy SAWMILL from page 1 and transportation engineering for the project. CDG was maybe two or three days to create an initial work schedule.” The project was all about equipment, and at peak there sq.-ft. sawmill; two lumber storage facilities (90,000-sq.-ft.) instrumental in helping select an appropriate site from within and three large continuous feed dry kilns, as well as a small a target area in Pike County identified by Rex Lumber. The were about 40 crew members on site, working 12-hour days office building and facilities to park trucks and three weigh project then required Air Permits and NPDES Permits from Mondays to Saturdays, with a few Sundays thrown in. stations — one for arriving cargos and two for outgoing car- the Alabama Department of Environmental Management Equipment-wise, this was an all-Cat operation, which had (ADEM). operators using 12 scrapers hauling dirt; four articulated gos. “The challenges on this site were to perform the necessary trucks; five excavators; dozers, including two DTN9s, one The BID Group, which specializes in sawmill construction from start to finish, including the equipment and its environmental surveys and geotechnical investigations, per- 8L (with GPS systems) and six D6s; four rollers; and two installation, is building the facility. The sawmill will consist form site design, obtain permits, get the site cleared and motorgraders (one with GPS). Floyd had two trucks to haul of a concrete foundation and be clad with steel and have a graded for the sawmill in a very short period of time,” said equipment to the work site, which brought everything there steel roof. The steel framing is being provided by American Mark Pugh, CDG’s president. “The earthwork objectives within a week. were to convert the rolling wooded site terrain into devel“The dozers came first so that we could start the clearing,” Buildings. “Everything has been optimized and engineered to maxi- opable site of 71 acres to support the sawmill operations. An he said, “and by the time we were ready to start hauling dirt, mize productivity and minimize needless movement,” said existing ridge across the site was cut to depths up to 14 feet everything was there.” Once the dozers started clearing the site, other crews could Rex Lumber General Manager Jared Banta, who noted that and the material was used as suitable compacted structural the logs will be processed and cut and sent to the kilns for fill in other portions of the site. The earthwork totaled more get into action. GPS was essential to meet the specifications for the drying and them sent back to the mill for planing and pre- than 750,000 cubic yards to balance the site. No soil material ground level and grade. pared for shipping. The plant will be producing 2x4s, 2x6s, was brought onto the site or hauled from the site.” The roadwork, as noted, will support the sawmill’s opera“They allowed one inch plus or minus,” said Floyd. “It 2x8s, 2x10s, and 2x12s, and 4x4s and 4x6s — dimensional tions. The site originally included an unpaved County Road had to be that exact. It was hard work and we had a lot of lumber and timbers.” The earth work operations, undertaken by W.S. Newell & 7724 that dissected the site, making it unsuitable for large people that knew what they were doing — good operators Sons Inc., began on March 22, 2018, and were completed by scale development. The Pike County Commission commit- and good foremen. It made our job a lot easier. ted to close the road and allow it to be relocated to a suitable “We piled 42,000 cubic yards of topsoil and we put most June 1. “We were under a lot of pressure to get the site ready for location that worked for both the industry and the nearby res- of it back around the perimeter — along the slopes and into ditches,” he added. “We also had three holdconstruction by June 15,” said Banta, “and ing ponds on the site and the dams on them W.S. Newell did a fantastic job. They moved had to be topsoil. We built the ponds. The about 750,000 cubic yards of dirt very quickcounty commissioner came out three weeks ly and efficiently and they created a 71-acre after we started and all he kept saying ‘it’s flat table site with a three percent grade. The incomprehensible’ over and over again.” way they mobilized and moved such a large Weather did not pose a major challenge, amount of dirt in a short amount of time, save for a week of near constant rain. The along with quality checks, was nothing short of amazing. When we put out our bid pack- Equipment-wise, this was an all-Cat operation, which had operators using 12 quality of the crews made the difference. “All of the guys worked for me for a long ages, we had at least one company decline to scrapers hauling dirt; four articulated trucks; five excavators; dozers, including bid because of the time frame — they didn’t two DTN9s, one 8L (with GPS systems) and six D6s; four rollers; and two motor- time,” said Floyd, “and I knew who was capable of what and made sure that they have the manpower and equipment to meet graders (one with GPS). were in the right place and to get the most out our accelerated timeline. of everybody. It just went smoothly. Everyone was tired, but “The BID Group is a sawmill OEM and it has changed the idents that used it to access their homes and property. “This commitment by the Commission made an other- they put in an impressive effort. I never claim to know everysawmill world,” he added. “Instead of piecemealing a mill together with a bunch of different OEMs, they take care of wise undevelopable site become a very attractive site to Rex thing and I’m open to everyone — I want to hear their opinions on how we can do a better job. everything and have become a turnkey general contractor. Lumber,” said Pugh. Primary access to the site will be along the four-lane U.S. “I don’t know if I would do anything different the way we Construction was scheduled to begin in early June, but they were delayed due to weather on another job site and they Highway 231 and then along County Road 7714, which was went about it,” he added. “It was the best way to do it. It was a collaboration with everyone pitching in with different ideas delayed construction start by a month. However, we are still once old U.S. Highway 231. “Old Highway 231 was once an 18 feet-wide concrete to make it happen.” on schedule to process logs next June. We had been talking, on a theoretical level, of building a mill for the past few highway that was later widened to county roadway standards The foremen assisting Floyd were Richard Young, Kerry years. We decided six months ago do it in Alabama. The and resurfaced,” said Pugh. “This highway will be improved Rogers, Rayvon Henry and Fred Beasley. wood basket is really good in this area and it’s in close prox- to accommodate the large number of heavily loaded log and W.S. Newell purchases its Cat equipment from Thompson imity to some of our other existing infrastructure. We have a lumber trucks. An additional acceleration lane will be added Tractor Company Inc. in Montgomery. On this project, Jason rail re-load facility in Dothan for finished lumber that affords to U.S. Highway 231 to allow trucks to enter traffic flow Faulkner served as the on-site mechanic, who occasionally safely. A new 2,700 feet three-lane road will be constructed brought in help from the shop to deal with repairs. Also easy trucking to the site.” Trucks, picking up logs at the re-load facility, will be able for the new location of Pike County Road 7724 to provide onsite were two service trucks to help with fueling and oilto take the industrial access road to the mill’s main entrance. the industrial access to the entrance of the sawmill, as well as ing. A crane will be installed to pick up the logs and place them public access for residents in the area.” “We experienced nothing out of the ordinary,” said Floyd. Mike Floyd, W.S. Newell project manager with 39 years on a conveyer belt system to enter the plant. “The material we were moving was not abrasive. We had Rex Lumber makes it a point to fully utilize natural of experience in such operations, was originally asked to cutting edges and scrapers that we had to change out.” complete the job in 30 days. The work started on March 24 resources. Green sawdust will be used to fuel the kiln operThompson Tractor also helped with the maintenance, ations, while green wood chips will be sold to paper mills, and was completed May 18. preparing replacements for hydraulic hoses that burst and “It was pretty much planning on site,” he said. the bark to mulch operations or to use as fuel and the dry sending a mechanic to assist Faulkner at critical times. shavings will go to pellet mills. The continuous kiln opera- “Everything was pushed so hard to get started — we sort of “This allowed us to catch up on things,” said Floyd. “You winged it. They had clear cut the site and there were just a lot tion has heat transferred to the kilns. Banta stressed that the design of the plant was well of tree stumps tops. We pushed all the stumps into a pile and can’t beat Thompson Tractor — they’re good people.” (This story also can be found on Construction then burned it. The fire lasted for about 2.5 weeks. We thought out to maximize production and energy efficiency. Alabama-based CDG Engineers & Associates Inc. is cleared the ground for the first week and then started strip- Equipment Guide’s website at www.constructionequipresponsible for environmental permitting, site work design ping the topsoil around the pile. The plan worked well. I had mentguide.com.) CEG
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