AGG1 2013 Provided a Wealth of Dredging Knowledge
The co-located 2013 World of Asphalt Show & Conference and AGG1 Aggregates Academy & Expo were held March 19-21 2013 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio Texas.
The show provided a lively forum for the aggregate and off-road construction industries. And though dredging occupied a small portion of the show and program the dredging expertise was vast with dredge manufacturers and a full range of supporting equipment on display and experts on hand to help customers decide on the appropriate equipment for their needs. There were two dredge manufacturers exhibiting – DSC Dredge LLC and Rohr-IDRECO Systems.
DuWayne Richert left of Liquid Waste Technology and Chris Reynolds of Rohr-IDRECO.
DSC designs and builds a range of hydraulic dredges and has many aggregate producers as customers. In recent years they acquired vertical clamshell builder Supreme Manufacturing Company and the principals of that company Neil and David Hoobler were in the booth at AGG1 along with Bill Wetta Charlie Johnson and others. To visit the booth was to see aggregate producers visiting to talk about their existing equipment and discuss options for new equipment.
Jeff Boone of Metso Minerals visited the DSC booth and discussed the Metso underwater pumps in use on the DSC dredges performing the Lake Onondaga New York cleanup project.
DSC customer Tommy Bacon left of Dolese Bros. Co. talks to Charlie Johnson.
On the first day of the conference Metso held a press conference to give an overview of the company’s good news – that its net sales were up 15 percent in 2012 – and to describe the renewed commitment to its material processing customers by maintaining its quality and maintaining a large inventory of dredge and mining pumps and parts screening equipment and other processing products in a number of regional locations.
Rich Robinson then announced the establishment of a new business unit within Metso – Screening and Conveying Solutions or SCS.
DuWayne Richert of Liquid Waste Technology met with IDR in the Rohr-IDRECO Dredge Systems booth to discuss the new Mudcat Multi-Purpose dredge.
LWT and Rohr are Ellicott companies.
From left Steven Slater Louis Vanderwilt and John Ware of Eagle Iron Works.
The project was conceived in the Ellicott engineering department in Baltimore and developed in the Wisconsin plant said Richert. Features include a backhoe pump pile driver excavator cutter clamshell self-unloader and self-loader. The prototype has been built and is being tested he said. The Mud Cat line is going strong said Richert.
Chris Reynolds director of sales and field operations described the new Rohr product line which includes jet assist suction and cutter suction catamaran-style dredges added to the company’s trademark vertical clamshell dredges.
In the GIW booth a representative reported that the company had sold six double-wall dredge pumps with 84-inch impellers to China and said that the company was doing well in the dredging oil sands and phosphate industries as well as in hard rock mining in Australia South Africa and South America.
Nick Baun of ISCO Industries represented the company’s polyethylene pipe line.
In the Neptune Flotation booth Terri Carruth was hosting along with Market Manager David Jordan. Carruth had been the face of Rotonics Manufacturing Company for some years and left the company when it was sold by the parent company. She has now joined Neptune Flotation and is sales representative for its pipeline floats.
Rotonics’ new name is Snyder Industries Inc. and Joe Bush is now market manager. Mike Melymuk stayed on as director of sales and both were in the company’s booth at AGG1.
Weir Minerals is another dredge pump manufacturer that displayed pumps valves and other wear parts at the show. Bud Stein described the manufacture and application of the company’s knife valves for use in dredge discharge lines as well as the company’s dredge pumps and liners.
David Gunter left and Jeremy Walker of Pearce Pump Supply on the show floor.
The Eagle Iron Works Swintek® chain dredge ladder has been widely used in compacted gravel and clay deposits for decades. The ladder and the company’s other heavy duty aggregate mining equipment made the company which was founded in 1872 a major player in the industry. Late last year Eagle was acquired by the aggregate equipment manufacturer McLanahan Corp of Hollidaysburg Pennsylvania. Eagle Iron Works remains a distinct entity in its original facilities in Des Moines Iowa. Steve Slater sales manager; Louis Vanderwilt sales engineer and John Ware general manager were on hand in the company booth at AGG1. Vanderwilt a longtime employee of the company reminisced with IDR about the industry and the uses of the popularity of the Swintek ladder. Today the ladder is a specialty item and the company’s washing classifying and dewatering equipment forms the bulk of its sales.
David Hoobler operates the excavator simulator in the Volvo booth. He had the overall high score for the show.
AGG1 had 385 exhibitors 123600 square feet of exhibits and 6000 attendees. A reported 8400 tickets were sold for the educational seminars. The AGG1 Academy sponsored by the National Stone Sand and Gravel Association included production and equipment sessions useful to aggregate dredging companies including detailed instruction on best practices in using and maintaining equipment. The dredging track was presented by Charles Johnson of DSC Dredge LLC who described the savings possible by retrofitting dredges to electric power.
The People Plants and Paving Training Program was organized by the National Asphalt Pavement Association and covered asphalt production and application in three days of presentations.
The 90 registered press representatives writing for the gamut of construction industry trade journals had access to the exhibit floor an hour early every day and exhibitors took this time to hold press conferences announcing their new products and other news.
On the last day of the show organizers were delivering contracts to the vendors for their exhibit space at CONEXPO/CON-AGG to be held in March 2014 in Las Vegas.
AGG1/World of Asphalt will be back in March 2015 in Baltimore Maryland. The shows are held annually except in CONEXPO-CON/ AGG years.
