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Midwest Edition
September 4 2010 Vol. XVII • No. 18
“The Nation’s Best Read Construction Newspaper… Founded 1957.” 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215/885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215/885-2910 • www.constructionequipmentguide.com
Inside
IAAP Holds Golf Tournament...10
National Gateway Project Breaks Ground in Ohio By Linda Hutchinson CEG CORRESPONDENT
More than $842 million in public and private sector funds have been committed to projects that will improve existing, and build new, rail infrastructure and intermodal capacities across six states. These funds have been made available from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program see GATEWAY page 50 CAWG Supplies Food, Fun at Steak Fry...12
Minn. Residents Hopeful Construction Job On Work at New Steel Plant Gains Widespread; By Bob Kelleher
MRWA Equipment Demo a Success...16
Table of Contents ........4 Off-Road Trucks Section ..............................33-44 Parts Section ..............46 Paving Section ......65-77 Business Calendar......82 Auction Section ....82-95 Advertisers Index ......94
(L-R): Fostoria Mayor John Davoli; Donald Miller of Roppe Corporation; ODOT District Two Deputy Director David Dysard; Randy Gardner, Ohio State Representative, 6th District; Seneca County Commissioner Ben Nutter; and Joan Reinhard of Fostoria Economic Development Corp. were on hand for the groundbreaking of the National Gateway Project.
MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO
NASHWAUK, Minn. (AP) For the first time in nearly 25 years, the Itasca County town of Nashwauk has been rattled by explosions this summer. That’s not unusual in northeast Minnesota’s iron mining country, but in Nashwauk, the sound has been a long time in coming. After more than a decade of planning, blasting is a first step toward Essar Steel’s huge project that will combine an iron mine, taconite pellet plant and steel mill. The work delights area residents eager for new jobs, but worries nearby homeowners concerned about dust and light. Demolition crews are blasting through 400,000 cu. yds. (305,822 cu m) of rock to make room for the $1.6 billion Essar Minnesota plant, one of the most expensive
Losses Less Severe
in Minnesota history. Building fabrication work could begin late this year, and continue in earnest through 2011. Crews will be erecting structures where mined rocks will be ground and separated into a high iron concentrate. Farther east, another 100,000 tons (90,718 t) of bedrock will be blasted for Minnesota’s newest taconite plant, where the concentrate will be formed and cooked into dark, marble sized pellets. A couple of years later, two more plants begin operations. One will create a high iron feed for steel-making called direct reduced iron, or DRI. The other will be a steel mill — the first in northeast Minnesota mining country. The project, which has created about 100 construction jobs this year, will create thousands next year, said Kevin Kangas, Essar Steel’s director of health, safety and environ-
Construction job gains were more widespread across the country and job losses were generally less severe in July than in June, the Associated General Contractors of America reported in an analysis of state employment data released by the Labor Department. Twenty-six states added construction jobs in July, compared to 19 in June, while six states added construction jobs over the past year and most others are losing far fewer jobs than previously, association officials noted. “Encouraging as it is to see some modest signs of progress, it is increasingly unlikely we’ll keep seeing these kinds of gains over the next few months,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “There is little to indicate that construction will be adding workers to a significant extent any time soon.” Simonson noted that the largest year-over-year
see STEEL page 30
see JOBS page 30