Pit & Quarry, September 2012

OPERATIONS Mark Balagna mine manager and Aaron Ozinga company president at the Henry Ill site We have found through testing that the lignite settles out in the 4 and 5 classifier cells Balagna says so we direct the discharge of these cells to two TCI banana screens Water and sand pass through the banana screens and are fed back to the dryer The lignite which is lighter flows off the end of the screens and into a sand screw for dewatering It is a very simple process Balagna says Its all done by gravity He adds that the Illinois Department of Transportation allows 2 percent deleterious materials in its product specifications Ozingas policy is zero Balagna adds Automation for the wash plant is provided by Engineered Software Products The Henry operation runs a secondary crushing plant which includes a Kolberg 2500 VSI crusher a Kolberg 1822 wash plant and a Kolberg 5036 25 twin sand screw This plant is operated based on market conditions It ran most of last year Balagna says but has seen less service this year We also run a CA6 plant to make our road gravel he says It consists of an Inertia 4048 impact crusher a 3x12 vibrating grizzly feeder and a 5x16 Kolberg triple deck screen We run this plant daily in the summer and every chance we can when it is dry Ozingas Henry Ill site has more than 100 million tons of proven reserves Some of the mobile equipment used at the operation includes Four Volvo wheel loaders and one each from Caterpillar and Komatsu Three Volvo A40 articulated haul trucks A John Deere excavator and Bucyrus Erie 88B dragline Tugboats for barge handling The boats are named Mikayla Skye and Elyse Noelle for the granddaughters of Martin Ozinga III The facility employs seven equipment operators a full time mechanic a safety and quality control person a scale attendant and a mine manager We also have lots of administrative The primary market for the material is Chicago and it is delivered to the companys network of eight docks from Joliet to downtown Chicago to the southeast side Connecting with kids Special from the Illinois Association of Aggregate Producers IAAP Ozinga Materials has sponsored teachers attending the IAAP Illinois Teachers Workshop Rocks Minerals Mining in Todays Society for a number of years Emily Terpstra from Daystar School in Chicago attended last year and encouraged her colleague Jessica Van Dyk to attend this year Together they teach third and fourth grade science As the school year drew to a close and students learned more about the importance of rocks minerals and mining in everyday life Terpstra and Van Dyk reached out to Aaron Ozinga company president asking for the opportunity to take their classes to a mine site in the area or for a guest speaker from the company to do a class presentation Ozinga knew just who to turn to for assistance the IAAP as well as Yolanda Budd safety and qualitycontrol manager at the Ozinga operation in Henry Ill Shawn McKinney IAAP outreach manager joined Budd to prepare a slideshow based on one originally composed by AMEC E Is Kip Smith for the Teachers Workshop which helps kids understand the how where and why of mining as well as the connection between mined rocks and minerals and the end products used each day Budd and McKinney led students through an exercise where they matched raw material rock or mineral samples with the familiar end product Much was learned from this simple hands on exercise McKinney was surprised by how much these students already new about mining The presentation helped reinforce the well planned program Terpstra and Van Dyk have built at Daystar School using educational materials and knowledge gained from attending the Illinois Teachers Workshop 20 PIT QUARRY September 2012 www pitandquarry com