b'DUST MANAGEMENTA breathTop four best practices for dust management to reduce fugitive of fresh air dust from reaching neighboursBy Brian SulleyT hecontroloffugitivedustat1. REDUCE THE GENERATION OF DUST aggregate sites is something thatTheobviousfirststepistoreducethe membersoftheOntarioStone,numberofdustparticlescreatedinthe SandandGravelAssociationfirst placea challenging measure for the (OSSGA)takeveryseriously.aggregate industry since the fundamental From the licensing process through to finalprocess of turning large rocks into small rehabilitation,operatorsmustconsiderrockscreatesdust.Eachloadertransfer, the potential impacts of fugitive dust andcrusher,screen,conveyor,transferpoint ensurethatdustismitigatedonsite,aandstackercangeneratedust.Where phraseembeddedintheconditionsonpossible,streamliningtheseprocesses almost every site plan. canreducetheamountofdustbeing Dustisabroadterm,whichincludesgenerated. Something as simple as using a the potential for both nuisance and healthlonger conveyor instead of several shorter impactsduetofine-grainedparticulateconveyorsmakesadifference.Enclosing matter suspended in the air. The finer theprocessing plants is also a way to reduce material, the greater the potential for healthdust generation, though this may not be impacts, but even larger dust particles havefeasible at all sites.the potential to create nuisance impacts on neighbouring properties. Thankfully, whileEven more significant, using conveyors some techniques are better at controllinginsteadofhaultruckscanresultinthe larger dust particles, all of these techniquessingle largest reduction in dust emissions offer a degree of effectiveness on a widefromanaggregatesite.Thisistypically range of particle sizes. achievedbyconveyingmaterialfromathis way also reduces the highway distance portable screen and primary crusher at thetruckstravelforshipping,providingyet Controlling fugitive dust comes down toworking face back to a centralized plantanother reduction in emissions.four key principles. nearthesiteentrance.Settingupasite Goodhousekeepingpracticeshelpas much as possible to remove accumulations ofdustparticlesandhelppreventthem frombecomingairborne.Allsitescan practise this.2. INCREASING DUST PARTICLE SIZEAlmost all site plans refer to using water oranotherprovinciallyapproveddust suppressant to mitigate dust. Water and dustsuppressantscausedustparticlesto stick together, increasing the particle size. Larger particles are less likely to become airborne and settle faster if they do.With water, the key concept is to offset evaporationoncetheroadsurfacehas been wetted. The best way to do this is to monitor the weather, since watering once dust is observed is often already too late.A predictive watering scheme may be useful forsomeoperations.Thisalsohelpsto reduce water use, which is something all OSSGA members strive to achieve.28 AVENUESFALL 2021'