EPA tags builder for lax concrete washout, stormwater management

Sources: Environmental Protection Agency; CP staff

Under agreement with the EPA, Rochester, N.Y., builder Atlantic Funding & Real Estate will pay a $50,000 penalty for stormwater control rule violations at its Gateway Landing development, and invest nearly $70,000 in a bioswale to filter silt and pollution from the site’s contaminated runoff into the Erie Canal.

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Economist links construction materials’ upward pricing to harsh winter

Source: Associated Builders & Contractors, Washington, D.C.

Through April, concrete products and iron & steel prices were up 3.4 percent and 3.2 percent year over year, while overall construction materials prices rose 1.5 percent against the first four months of 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s mid-May Producer Price Index.

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General Resource creates Mapei Americas admixture platform

Sources: Mapei Corp., Deerfield Beach, Fla.; CP staff

Mapei Americas has acquired Minnesota admixture producer General Resource Technology, eyeing synergies with its own product portfolio—adhesives, coatings, grouts and mortars—while extending GRT offerings beyond the Central U.S., first toward the coasts and eventually to Canada and Mexico.

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Targeting fall prevention, OSHA opens June with national stand-down

Sources: Occupational Safety & Health Administration; CP staff

As announced earlier this year, OSHA has designated June 2-6 for a national construction site stand-down—contractors and crews pausing workdays to review ladder, scaffolding and roofing work safety—aiming to raise awareness about hazards accounting for the highest number of deaths in the industry.

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ASTM Subcommittee advances standard for RCC density, air content

Sources: ASTM International, West Conshohocken, Pa.; CP staff

A proposed ASTM standard will provide a test method for properties of fresh roller compacted concrete, its development coinciding with the increasing specification of RCC for highway road base, streets, roads, parking lots and heavy industrial pavements, in addition to long-established water resources structures.

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Cool-crete, Greencraft, Solidia officials to address ACI Strategic Development Council

Sources: ACI Foundation, Farmington Hills, Mich.; CP staff

The ACI Foundation’s Strategic Development Council (SDC) will hold its Technology Forum #36 at the Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, September 4-5, to include an Alcatraz Island tour Concrete Preservation Institute Executive Director Dr. Tanya Komas has arranged with the National Parks Service.

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NRMCA opens 2014 Environmental Excellence Awards program

Source: National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Silver Spring, Md.

NRMCA is accepting through July 31 entries in the Commitment To Environmental Excellence Awards competition, recognizing member producers’ contributions to protecting the environment and maintaining sound management practice in their operations.

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Study finds $1/sq. ft. savings in Green Globes vs. LEED certification process

Source: Green Building Initiative, Portland, Ore.; CP staff

The Green Building Initiative’s Green Globes is less expensive to conduct and faster to complete than the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification, according to a GBI-cited study of costs attending a recently completed building—bearing three Green Globes and LEED Gold certification—at Drexel University’s West Philadelphia campus.

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Greenpeace, Sierra Club: Green building rating systems experts?

Source: CP staff

Responding to the Green Building Initiative’s (GBI) Green Globes as an alternative to the LEED green building rating system, environmental activists have chartered Greenwash Action, and released a report dubbing the former certification “a ‘green’ building rating system backed by the chemical, plastics and timber industries.”

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PCA economist firm on 2014 growth projection in 8 percent range

Sources: Portland Cement Association, Skokie, Ill.; CP staff

Although recent indicators point to a tempering of the U.S. economy, PCA is maintaining its forecast for steady growth in construction and cement consumption during the next five years, starting with a projected 7.9 percent increase this year in powder shipments, nearly double the 4.5 increase the industry logged in 2013 over prior-year volume.

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