Ground Improvement

Geosynthetics have established themselves as vital go-tos on construction sites and in environmental projects throughtout the world. In Grading and Excavation Contractor Magazine, Charles D. Bader writes on the proliferation of the materials, taking a snapshot of applications such as road reinforcement, drainage management, and erosion control. Learn more here.;

Rolled erosion control products (RECPs), especially when combined with other technologies, are part of successful long-term solutions. Read Donna Gordon Blakinship's article from Erosion Control magazine. Learn more here.;

The Wachusett Regional School District (MA) and its construction contractor have been slapped with a $75,000 fine for poor erosion control during the school's renovation. Sediment runoff has clouded a nearby stream on numerous occasions. Erosion began during a heavy October storm and continued in the following as site practices were apparently not revised. Learn more here.;

The Rice Creek Watershed District (Minnesota) is launching a volunteer inspector program this spring and to help identify construction sites with sediment and erosion-control problems. Volunteer inspectors will be trained at a short workshop and then will notify the district inspector when they see erosion-control problems at construction sites. For more information, contact Kelsey Hallcock at +1 763 398 3074 or khallcock@ricecreek. org or visit www.ricecreek.org to learn more. Learn more here.;

EC06, 20 - 24 February, Long Beach, Calif., will feature a Field Day event at which erosion control products and site management techniques will be demonstrated. Among the day's participants will be gsa underwriters Colbond (booth 639) and North American Green (booth 300).

The Toronto City Council continues to advance in its "Making Green Roofs Happen" initiative, proposing funding and construction targets for green roofs on new and retrofit buildings. Geosynthetic lining and drainage systems have been vital to the success of many green roof installations. Some cost/benefit numbers can be found in Section 1 of the city's green roof discussion paper. Learn more here.;

Though erosion control products often look simple, their characteristics and performance are complex. Proper selection, installation and monitoring is more difficult than one might think, as evidenced by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), which has now fined itself for violating its own landfill runoff control policies… Learn more here.;

The Erosion Control Technology Council (ECTC) has produced an educational DVD on the proper installation of rolled erosion control products (RECPs). The DVD includes 8-minute sections on installation of RECPs in channels, slopes and shorelines. The information concerns site preparation, staking, anchor trenches and more. To purchase a copy of the DVD contact Laurie Honnigford at +1 651 554 1895. Learn more here.;

Timothy L. Lancaster Appointed President; Steve Elliott Promoted to Vice President of Administration and Finance. North American Green, the nation’s largest manufacturer of rolled erosion control products, recently announced the promotion of two senior executives, a move designed to further strengthen the company’s mission of being the ‘Leading Supplier of Erosion and Sediment Control Solutions’ in the world.

Published by Thomas Telford, the latest issue of Geosynthetics International (volume 12 issue 6) contains six technical papers.

Ron Faucher, Becky Gauthier and Lee Johnson will take office in February 2006 to serve their three-year terms on the Board. Faucher, Gauthier and Johnson come from distinctly different backgrounds, but are all dedicated professionals with the success of the IECA as their first priority. As members of the governing body of the association, they will play key roles in determining the association’s future. Ron Faucher, CPESC, has worked in watershed protection for 40 years in various capacities and today is the Source Protection Coordinator at Portland (Maine, USA) Water District. He served on IECA’s Awards Committee and is currently on the Membership Advisory, Student Resources, Chapter Advisory and Executive committees. He has been a member of IECA since 1988, when he attended his first conference, and is a proud member of the Decade Club. He serves as secretary for the Northeast Chapter and is currently Administrative Vice President of the IECA Board of Directors. Becky Gauthier is the Technical Representative for Fiber Marketing International, Inc., and has worked in the erosion control industry since 1990. She is currently the president of the Pacific Northwest Chapter of IECA and has served on the Chapter Board of Directors since 1999. Becky has also served as the Secretary of the IECA Board of Directors, and chaired both the Chapter Advisory Committee and the Student Resources Committee. Lee Johnson, CPESC, has been with the Geo-Fabrics/Erosion Control Division of the Buckley Powder Co., Englewood, Colorado, USA for the past 17 years and has been involved in all facets of the erosion control industry for 20 years. He has held the CPESC certification since 1993. Lee is an active member of numerous organizations that are involved in erosion, sediment control and revegetation programs, including: IECA; Mountain States Chapter, IECA; American Society for Testing and Materials; Golf Course Builders Association of America; Colorado Contractors Association; in addition to other local and regional associations.

IECA is inviting partner organizations for their annual conference in Long Beach, CA., February 20-24, 2006. Show EC06 conference attendees the link between erosion control and your organization’s mission or cause.

Increased production capacity and the ability to dedicate an entire production line to research and development will be provided by Western Excelsior's addition of a sixteen foot wide RECP production machine. The new RECP production machine will be supplied by MST of Germany and is capable of producing blankets in widths of four to sixteen feet.

Bob Koerner reports on the ASCE/PennDOT Conference in Hershey, Pennsylvania, the ESD Waste Conference in Lansing, Michigan. He then visits Tenax in Baltimore regarding geonets, followed by a trip to lecture at Tensar, and a visit with SKAPS. GCLs, White Paper #5, and the currently reviewed GCL Specification are also touched upon.

A regional board has imposed the largest water-quality fine on a construction site in its history, levying a $1.26 million penalty against the developer of the city's new 186-acre business park. Article by Craig Gustafson, Union-Tribune staff writer. Learn more here.;

Performing a Liner Leak Location Survey in a Confined Space: Some Observations, written by Ian Peggs, I-CORP INTERNATIONAL.

By Jean Snyder, Fulton County News - 10/06/04. The state Department of Environmental Protection held a hearing Tuesday at the county conservation district’s offices and imposed a $4,650 penalty on David H. Martin Excavating for non-compliance issues identified last month at the new Giant Food Store site just south of McConnellsburg off Route 522. According to the local Soil Conservation District’s reports, the Chambersburg excavation company has consistently been in non-compliance with the project’s approved erosion and sedimentation best practices plan during site preparation work for the 50,000 square-foot supermarket. Learn more here.;

CETCO Lining Technologies Group is pleased to announce our new E-Cert GCL MQC/MQA certification system. This new system will allow GCL certification packages to be e-mailed directly by CETCO to anyone responsible for reviewing GCL certification packages on a particular project. The layout of the GCL certification packages will appear different from the packages currently used by CETCO – for an example, please go to the "continued" link below. MQC/MQA test data has been streamlined to report only relevant data. By eliminating irrelevant test data, the certification package will be quicker and easier to review. CETCO manufacturing plants will begin e-mailing this new certification package to each specified project technical contact soon. This direct e-mailing will be performed until such a time as MQC/MQA certification packages are made available on-line via the internet. Customers will then be directed to a CETCO website for retrieval of their certification packages. The website will be secure, where customers through a password/username system will only have access to their specific projects. A set of detailed instructions for the CETCO E-Cert website will be forthcoming. We appreciate your continued interest in CETCO products and look forward to working with you to meet all of your future needs!

Effective August 1, 2004 Colbond, Inc. announces the launch of a new family of environmentally conscious Enkadrain subsurface drainage composites.

Layfield Plastics Incorporated, a member of The Layfield Group of Companies, and CW Neal Corporation are pleased to announce the successful completion of Layfield's acquisition of the business assets of CW Neal Corporation.

The International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories is a new, refereed online journal in the field of Geoengineering. The journal aims to become a focal point of geotechnical engineering practice worldwide by publishing case histories. The journal is refereed in accordance to the procedures of the most prestigious journals in our field and the Editorial Board of the journal consists of some of the best engineers of practice and Professors worldwide that guarantee the quality of the publication. Characteristics of the journal: The International Journal of Geoengineering Case Histories has characteristics that differentiate it from existing journals and will position it as a very useful tool for the engineer of practice. Such characteristics are listed on the website of the journal and include use of colored figures, compilation of a database of case histories, online searchable directory of papers. One of the most important characteristics of the journal is that it will be available at no cost on the Internet, allowing unlimited access to engineers worldwide. Printed copies of the journal will be available with subscription, but engineers will now be able to just visit the website and download the papers that are of interest to them. Because of the journal’s focus on case histories, its unique characteristics, the high quality of the publication and its unrestricted access to its content, it is expected that it will become very popular among engineers of practice but also among researchers that want to access the data. The journal intends to be a free, very useful, high quality and everyday tool for the work of practicing engineers. The journal was announced for the first time in the “Prakash Case Histories Conference” this April and the responses by the engineers of practice were enthusiastic. Learn more here.;

A photographic library is being developed at geosynthetica.net as a means to help engineers understand the nature and cause(s) of geosynthetic materials/product performance concerns. It will represent the performance of geosynthetics since the early 1980s so it should be noted that a number of the early materials problems have been resolved and occur only infrequently these days. In fact, the predominant cause of failures these days is not the quality of the geosynthetic product itself, rather, it is the design of geosynthetic containing systems applications to which the specified geosynthetics are not suited - a lack of knowledge by the design engineer of the performance characteristics of the different geosynthetic material products. We welcome additional examples from around the world (liners, caps, walls, slopes, berms/bunds, floating covers, erosion control, roads, dams, etc.). Please send a photograph and a very brief explanation of the cause of failure to lara@geosynthetica.net.

Conwed, a maker of netting for a variety of applications, has dropped “Plastics” from its corporate name. It now uses the positioning statement “Global Netting Solutions” to better reflect its expanding product line and distribution network. Among its many industry segments of operation, Conwed produces erosion control netting for environmental reclamation and restoration. It is a member of the Erosion Control Technology Council (ECTC) and the International Association of Geosynthetic Installers (IAGI).

The 2004 GFR Specifier's Guide is now available. The Spec Guide is an international industry resource that offers technical geosynthetic product data and links to expert installers, designers, consultants, test labs and manufacturers. Data on the following products is available: geotextiles, geomembranes, geosynthetic clay liners, drains and geonets, geogrids, geocells, rolled erosion control products and hard armor. The publication is available to GFR subscribers. A limited number of copies are available for purchase. For subscription information, contact Susan Smeed at subscriptions@ifai.com, or call +1 651/222-2508, fax +1 651/225-6966. To purchase a copy of the 2004 Specifier's Guide, contact Barbara Connett at bjconnett@ifai.com, +1 651/225-6913, fax +1 651/631-9334, Web site www.bookstore.ifai.com. GFR is published by the Industrial Fabrics Association International, 1801 County Rd. B W., Roseville, MN 55113-4061; Web site www.ifai.com. Learn more here.;

Having officially opened its Malaysian facility this November, Fibertex is one of seven companies in Malaysia producing nonwoven materials for filtration.