Mines Ain't Dark as a Dungeon No More

Although we wouldn't mind if Vulcan Materials was leaving us unmarked packages of cold, rock-hard cash in a Swiss bank account (made of fine construction aggregate) on a regular basis, they're not.Even so, we can't help but notice some of the great press they've been getting lately, especially as they are often considered the enemy in some of the FC (notably Azusa and Claremont). Patrick Seitz of Investor's Business Daily just wrote an article explaining how well the construction aggregate industry is doing these days, buoyed by strong commercial and government building. Vulcan is planning to buy a competitor for $4.6-billion. This ain't a small company, folks, and growing public works projects in, say, California, are going to increase the need for its services.

Obviously, our cities shouldn't be kowtowing to mining interests over the good of their residents [Like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard with his wine / A man will have lust for the lure of the mine], but the IBD article has some interesting quotations from the "other side" of the usually told story:

Mines can have economic lives of 25 or 30 years, so they need to be excavated efficiently and with an eye toward use of the land once mining is completed, [Vulcan CEO Donald] James says.

"We are large landowners, and our land is largely in metropolitan areas — and we are very cognizant of the fact that mining is an interim use of the land,"James said. "Our land will likely end up as either residential or commercial development around a beautiful turquoise quarry lake. So we are using technology to help us maximize both the efficiency of our production and the value of our residual real estate."