The new four-lane Highway 49 Bypass recently completed in northern California begins south of historic Sutter Creek and ends a little north of Amador City. The bypass is 4 mi. (6.4 km) long and involved the building of two major bridges. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was Nov. 9, 2006.
Crushing and screening aggregates from the excavation and “waste” rock at two sites helped keep construction on schedule and saved the state of California approximately $1.8 million in the process.
The primary contractor was Viking-Stimpel, which was a joint venture that included the bridge builder, Viking Construction from Rancho Cordova, Calif., and the road builder, Stimpel-Wiebelhaus Associates from Redding, Calif. The equipment supplier was Eland Construction, a disabled veterans business enterprise based in Orangevale, Calif. The equipment dealer was Powerscreen of California from American Canyon, Calif. The crushing/screening/conveying equipment consisted of two complete Terex Pegson and Powerscreen systems totaling 14 machines.
Eland worked on the project site, which was hilly and full of greenstone — a dense, igneous rock slightly green in color. The contractor encountered a lot more rock in the excavation process than expected, which caused some serious problems.
“We had bid the job very aggressively,” Bill Wiebelhaus, operations manager of Stimpel-Wiebelhaus, said. “I believe we were about $2 million below the closest bidder. The job required about 700,000 tons of offhaul. We knew we could make quality road base from the rock excavation but were limited on stockpile room in the highway right-of-way such that we could only make about half of the 120,000 tons required.
“Our biggest problem was what to do with the excess shot-rock excavation. The potential waste sites on properties adjacent to the job are used for cattle grazing or agriculture. This meant we’d have to haul the rock away as waste to a landfill or other remote site approved by the state of California. All that is expensive, slows production and isn’t great for the environment.”
Wiebelhaus added that work crews hit approximately 185,000 tons (167,000 t) of additional rock that had to be hauled away and said Stimpel-Wiebelhaus would have been entitled to $10 per ton haulage by Caltrans.
“This would cost the state more than $1.8 million and delay the work,” Wiebelhaus said. “Then came Eland Construction. We were looking for a short-term rental on a rock plant to crush the 60,000 tons of road base on site, and Eland could supply just what we needed. We had no idea that Eland would end up crushing the offhaul rock. But fortunately that’s how it worked out.”
“We specialize in processing successful entitlement applications with government agencies, general engineering and construction, heavy equipment rentals, fire fighting services, erosion control, geosynthetic supplies — and now we’re into producing aggregate products for sale, due to the Highway 49 Bypass project,” Mark Steiner, Eland’s president and owner, said.
“Up till the bypass project, my knowledge of aggregates was pretty much limited to getting what I needed for building roads when developing my subdivisions and doing other construction projects. But fortunately I have two gentlemen in my Eland employ who are experts in aggregates processing. When I learned of Stimpel-Wiebelhaus’ excess rock situation, we got our heads together with Bill Wiebelhaus and went to work on solving their problem.”
Steiner suggested that rather than get rid of the excess rock, the company should use it. He indicated that would save Stimpel-Wiebelhaus from having to haul out thousands of heavy loads in trucks.
“We saw crushing the offhaul as a way to save California a lot of money, help the environment, produce much-needed aggregate in various sizes, and make some profit in the process,” Steiner explained. “That’s a win-win situation for everybody.”
As a result, Eland leased privately owned land outside the bypass right-of-way adjacent to the highway at a site on Tonzi Road near the town of Sutter Creek and set up a crushing and screening operation for the excess rock.
Stimpel-Wiebelhaus rented a crushing/screening system from Eland and located it within the bypass right-of-way to crush as much rock as 60,000 tons (54,400 t) for road base. They hauled the excess rock to Eland’s Tonzi Road operation where Eland crushed it. The company used some of the crushed rock for its own building and road construction purposes, and offered the rest for sale.
“We’ve kept most of the crushed rock on site until the bypass [was] completed,” Steiner said. “Now it can be sold to other third parties and hauled away on the bypass instead of over the little rural roads. We have more than 500,000 tons of processed rock material. When all the crushed rock is sold and gone, the land can be used again as the owner wishes.”
For this operation, Eland incorporated the needs of the California aggregate market and acquired the crushing and screening equipment to meet those needs.
“My Eland aggregate experts checked out the equipment situation very thoroughly,” said Steiner. “They talked to a number of manufacturers and dealers, as well as users of the equipment we were considering.”
Eland opted to use a system consisting of Terex Pegson tracked jaw and cone crushers and Powerscreen tracked screening plants. Eland visited job sites where such equipment was being used and heard the equipment owners’ praises of the Powerscreen and Terex Pegson machines.
“You actually do not need a screen plant between the jaw and the cone. The primary jaw feeds directly into the secondary cone. The Automax handles it with no bowl-bounce, no pressure release to contaminate the mixture, and no damage whatever to the plant,” said Wiebelhaus. “No other manufacturer’s tracked cone plant that I know of can do that. It’s unheard of, really. And it’s so important. It saves you from buying or renting and maintaining an extra screening plant and eliminates a step in the production process, which speeds up the whole operation. All this equipment is quick and easy to transport over the road and set up on site. We also like that we have one-source dealer responsibility and economy for all the equipment.”
Eland purchased two Pegson-Powerscreen crushing, screening and radial stacker systems from Powerscreen of California after an on-site equipment demonstration. The first system went on stream in July 2004 and the second some months later. Both have run well.
Eland’s crew worked 8 to 10 hour days Monday through Friday, Wiebelhaus said.
Stimpel-Wiebelhaus primarily produced Class 2, .75-in. minus (1.9 cm), road base, plus structural backfill (SBF) material. It’s equipment system consisted of a Pegson 26x44 Premiertrak jaw plant feeding a Powerscreen Warrior 1800, which produced the SBF and also fed a Pegson 1300 Maxtrak cone. The 1300 cone fed a Powerscreen Chieftain 1800 dry screen that operates in closed circuit with a Pegson 1000 cone and fed Class 2 road base to two Powerscreen radial stacking conveyors.
Eland was set up to produce a number of finished products at its Tonzi Road site. It’s basic system consisted of a Pegson 26x44 jaw feeding a Pegson 1300 cone that fed a Powerscreen Chieftain 1800 screen. The Chieftain operated in closed circuit with a Pegson 1000 cone and fed Class 2 base rock to two Powerscreen radial stackers in tandem that stockpiled the material. This system produced .5-in. (1.27 cm) drain rock with the jaw-and-cone combination and 6-in. (15.24 cm) minus rip-rap with the jaw plant alone.
Eland’s stackers also fed a Chieftain 2400 screen plant capable of producing a number of different size products simultaneously, including SBF, .75-in. drain rock, .5-in. drain rock, and Amador County Water Agency spec sand.
“Just as the equipment has to work together in a unified system, so do the people,” Steiner said. “Eland Construction and Powerscreen of California work together, and that’s one big reason why this whole crushing operation has been successful.”
The Terex Pegson 26x44 Premiertrak is an M-Series single-toggle jaw crusher with hydraulic setting adjustment. The hydraulic folding feed hopper has up to 13 cu. yds. (9.9 cu m) gross capacity. The plant is fitted with a vibrating grizzly feeder, on-plant product conveyor, side dirt conveyor, hydraulic raise/lower tail section, overband magnetic separator, dust-suppression sprays and heavy-duty tracks.
The Terex Pegson 1300 and 1000 Maxtrak cone crushers feature the Automax all-in-feed design. The plants can be fed with full level control from a conveyor, bucket loader or Terex Pegson Premiertrak jaw plant. The Automax design can effectively utilize greater engine power and low friction loss. The all-in-feed process with level control for choke feeding is designed to maximize throughput and production, optimize shape, and minimize wear.
The Powerscreen Chieftain 1800 dry screen is highly mobile and sets up ready to run in 15 minutes. It can process up to 500 tons (453 t) per hour, depending on mesh and material, and features a 16 by 5-ft. (4.8 by 1.52 m) double-deck screen. The force in the screen is 25 percent greater, due to larger bearings, for optimum performance in wet, sticky applications.
The high-capacity Chieftain 2400 is Powerscreen’s largest dry screening plant, featuring true 20- by 6-ft. (6 by 1.8 m) direct feed 3-deck and 2-deck versions and numerous options for volume treatment of aggregate, sand/gravel, coal and crushed concrete/asphalt rubble. The unit has a very aggressive .3 in. (.7 cm) throw and .3 in. under load). Low maintenance is a prime feature — 500-hour oil changes due to oil-bath bearings. The plant has four product conveyors, and can process up to 750 tons (680 t) per hour.
The Powerscreen Warrior 1800 sets up on site in 20 minutes or less and screens up to 700 tph (635 t). It has heavy-duty impact bars instead of rollers in key areas and a hardox steel hopper with hydraulic folding sides. The hopper exit opening is 4-ft. (1.2 m) wide.
For more information on Powerscreen and Terex Pegson, call 503/736-5200.
For more information on Powerscreen of California, call 707/253-1874.
For more information on Stimpel-Wiebelhaus, visit www.stimpel.net.
For more information on Eland Construction, call 916/988-6300. CEG
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