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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflondon@mindspring.com>
  • To: permaculture
  • Subject: Re: granite fertilizer
  • Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 10:18:40 -0400


On Sun, 21 May 2000 22:41:22 -0700 (PDT), Toby Hemenway
<hemenway@jeffnet.org> wrote:

>An interesting question. Rock dust is nearly always a by-product of gravel
>quarrying. The basalt quarry near me generates several hundred thousand
>cubic yards per year (!) of gravel for road construction; the owner says he
>gives away a couple of yards a year of rock dust (most of that to me,
>lately) in the form of fines that come off the crusher. Hundreds of yards
>of fines blow away. So rock-dust production is a tiny drop in an ocean of
>gravel; "sustainable" as long as gravel is being produced, I guess. Gravel

Hardly a drop in the ocean. These "fines" that come off the crusher
are either screenings used in asphalt production or pond fines, 80-400
mesh, that settle out of the wash water used to clean the rock in the
crusher in the settling ponds the wash water flows into (there are
linked successive ponds for collecting fines). These ponds fill up
with silt and have to be dredged periodically of huge quantities of
fines that have to be given away or disposed of as an unwanted
byproducts of the quarrying process.

Excellent stuff.

LL
Lawrence F. London, Jr. Venaura Farm ICQ#27930345
lflondon@mindspring.com london@metalab.unc.edu
metalab.unc.edu/intergarden InterGarden
metalab.unc.edu/permaculture PermaSphere
metalab.unc.edu/intergarden/orgfarm AGINFO




  • Re: granite fertilizer, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 05/22/2000

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