The Biden administration helped to broker a tentative agreement, averting a potential rail shutdown that would have impacted U.S. supply chains.

United States railroad unions have secured a tentative deal after about 20 hours of talks brokered by the Biden administration to avert a rail shutdown that could have impacted supply chains nationwide, freezing many cargo shipments and causing inflation to spike.

According to a report from Reuters, Biden administration officials hosted labor contract talks Sept. 14 to secure an agreement between unions, which represent 115,000 workers and railroads, including Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Kansas City Southern. Negotiations between the companies and a dozen unions had been ongoing for more than two years.

Industry associations, such as the Washington-based Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), the Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) and the Washington-based American Chemistry Council (ACC), have sent letters to congressional leaders urging them to help avert a possible railroad strike.

“Rail service is vital to the receiving and delivering recycled of materials used in manufacturing—including 70 percent of all U.S.-produced steel, which is made from recycled material,” ISRI states in its letter to congressional leaders. “Without rail shipments of ferrous metal, steel mills across the country will be forced to slow or even shut production. The same is true for other recycled materials such as aluminum, paper, copper, plastics and glass. Moreover, even a short rail strike would send a ripple effect through our economy that will take months to recover from as these supply chains will be disrupted.

“Rail service is also critical to ensuring the recycled materials industry can provide materials that are a sustainable alternative to those that require cutting trees, mining, drilling or harvesting scarce natural resources. Moving recycled materials off the rail system and onto trucks would not only increase carbon emissions but also clog our nation’s highways.”

AISI President and CEO Kevin Dempsey sent a letter to congressional leadership Sept. 14 urging Congress to act if a voluntary agreement in the rail negotiations had not reached a conclusion. Had the rail industry not come to a tentative agreement, Dempsey says, it would have had serious negative consequences for the U.S. economy, including the steel industry.

“Our nation’s railroads not only serve as the arteries for American commerce—they are an indispensable necessity for the health and survival of our domestic steel industry,” Dempsey says. “American steel producers rely heavily on railroads for transporting raw materials to their mills and for shipping finished steel products to the market. A functional freight railroad system is critical to ensuring that the American steel industry can effectively and efficiently serve its customers. At a time when our nation’s supply chains for critical materials like steel have not yet fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be a tremendous setback for supply chains to suffer another blow. … A voluntary agreement among all parties to the ongoing rail negotiations is clearly the best outcome. But if negotiators fail to reach an agreement by the end of the cooling off period, we urge Congress to act to ensure that our nation’s freight rail system remains operational.”

The ACC sent a letter to congressional leaders Sept. 9, asking lawmakers to “closely monitor” the contract negotiations for freight rail workers and to act quickly to prevent a work disruption.

“Freight rail is critical to ACC’s members and chemical manufacturing,” ACC’s letter states. “Our industry is one of the largest freight rail customers, shipping 2.2 million carloads in 2021. We rely on railroads to safely transport our products to customers around the United States and the world. A rail strike or work stoppage of any length would cause potentially devastating harm to our industry, the nation’s supply chains and the economy. … A fair and workable rail labor agreement is a critical step towards resolving the ongoing freight rail service crisis that is already harming American manufacturers, farmers and energy producers. ACC believes a negotiated solution between the parties is always the preferred outcome.”

With a tentative deal in place, Reuters reports that the unions must now vote on this deal. President Joe Biden says the tentative agreement reached “is an important win” for the economy and the nation.

“It is a win for tens of thousands of rail workers who worked tirelessly through the pandemic to ensure that America’s families and communities got deliveries of what have kept us going during these difficult years,” Biden says in a statement on the tentative rail agreement. “These rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions and peace of mind around their health care costs, all hard-earned.”

Biden says the tentative deal also benefits railway companies, helping to ensure they can retain and recruit more workers.

“I thank the unions and rail companies for negotiating in good faith and reaching a tentative agreement that will keep our critical rail system working and avoid disruption of our economy,” Biden adds.

Billy Johnson, chief lobbyist at ISRI, says if the tentative agreement isn’t ratified, it could spell problems for supply chains and the economy. He adds that rail networks have already notified some customers that they were not picking up shipments in light of the potential strike.

“They were preparing for the worst. That already has sent a few ripples through the marketplace,” he says. “It just takes a blip for that to happen. I would expect railroads to remain tentative … holding to these customer warnings.”

He adds that if the agreement passes, it likely will lead to increased transportation costs to pay for higher wages among rail workers. 

“Costs are going to go [up] through the system, obviously,” Johnson says. “Most of these [rail companies] are publicly traded companies, and they will try to keep profits up. They will have to pass labor costs over. That means that most likely, even if scrap prices don’t go up … the price of transportation will go up and so the price of steel will go up. I don’t see the steel industry absorbing much, and I would imagine that they will pass on as much of the cost as possible.”

Australia-based steelmaker spotlights Ohio mill in its sustainability report.

BlueScope Steel Ltd., based in Australia, has pointed to its scrap-fed North Star electric arc furnace (EAF) mill in Ohio when announcing the release of its 2022 sustainability report. “Our growth and acquisitions in the United States have focused on the circular economy and expanding our coated and painting footprint,” the company says.

One of its most recent recycling-related growth measures has been the acquisition of the former Milliron Recycling shredder yard in Mansfield, Ohio, in August. The prior year, BlueScope North Star acquired the shredders and other ferrous recycling assets of Indiana-based MetalX.

In the early years of this decade, BlueScope also invested heavily in its Ohio North Star operations, undertaking an expansion project that will allow the company to produce an additional 850,000 tons of steel at the site annually.

In its newly released sustainability report, the company highlights the role of recycling in the overall steel industry, writing, “Today, more than 50 percent of the world’s steel is made from obsolete scrap (from end-of-life used products that have been recycled). Across BF-BOF [blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace] steelmaking and EAF steelmaking, this is expected to increase to around 67 percent in 2050 as steel stocks built up over the previous decades reach end of life.”

BlueScope then adds a note of caution, writing, “Unfortunately, current and predicted future demand for steel far exceeds the amount of steel reaching end-of-life, and therefore making its way into the scrap supply chain. Acknowledging that global scrap steel supplies are insufficient to produce enough steel through scrap based EAF steelmaking to meet expected steel demand, steel produced from virgin iron will continue to play a critical role in the future.”

Nonetheless, the company says it is “seeking opportunities to increase scrap recycling in all steelmaking locations,” and writes of its Ohio efforts that its mill there “is strategically located in Delta, Ohio, in a key scrap-rich area near its customers. BlueScope Recycling and Materials [the former MetalX assets], acquired during the year, is a full-service, ferrous scrap metal recycler with one of its two processing facilities adjacent to our North Star BlueScope Steel facility. In August 2022, a third ferrous scrap processing site [Milliron Recycling] was acquired.”

The full 72-page BlueScope 2022 sustainability report data supplement can be found here.

The company recently introduced the 644 G-tier to the U.S. market and debuted the 544 G-tier in Canada.

After a successful introduction into the Canadian market in 2021, Moline, Illinois-based John Deere has expanded its G-tier wheel loader offerings into the U.S. with the 644 G-tier wheel loader. As part of the John Deere Performance Tiering Strategy, customers can benefit from tailored offerings that provide more performance, comfort and economical options.

The expansion of this lineup also includes the new 544 G-tier wheel loader now available in Canada. The 544 G-tier provides customers working in a variety of applications with a “no-frills, versatile and reliable solution” backed by John Deere and its dealer network, the company says.

“Not every customer is looking for the most technology in a machine. By introducing the 544 G-tier in Canada and expanding the availability of the 644 G-tier into the United States, we are providing our customers with options to help meet their diverse needs,” says Luke Gribble, solutions marketing manager for John Deere. “The G-tier models support customers looking for reliability, without the added extras that they would find in a P-tier or X-tier machine, and that fit their investment levels as well. With the G-tier models, customers are getting the versatility and ruggedness in a machine without any compromises.”

Now available in the U.S., the 644 G-tier leverages industry-proven components and is equipped with a cab design that promotes ease of operation. With the 644 G-tier machines, John Deere says it delivers a solution ideal for customers in the governmental, rental, site development and asphalt industries. The 644 G-tier wheel loaders include a John Deere 6.8L engine and feature John Deere Teammate axles. Customers can also customize the machine through a variety of base-level packages, including options related to locking differentials, ride control, seats, radio and rear chassis work-lights.

Making its debut in the Canadian market, the 544 G-tier is designed to provide a more economical solution in the 3-yard loader size class that does not sacrifice the “performance and quality customers expect from a John Deere machine.” The 544 G-tier controls were designed with operators of all skill sets and productivity in mind, offering a simplified setup and overall functionality.

Promoting ease of operation, the in-cab controls include adjustable boom-height kick-out, return to carry and return to dig, which can be easily activated from inside the cab, speeding production times during repetitive applications. In addition, the company says the 544 G-tier is ideal for those looking for a capable machine for rental, agriculture, governmental and snow removal applications.

The 544 G-tier can be equipped with optional features to help tackle challenging applications, as well. Optional features include a hydraulic reversing fan, axle coolers and front locking differentials, helping to keep it at peak performance.

The optional third and fourth function hydraulics allow additional attachments to be equipped on the machine, amplifying job versatility. On the 544 G-tier, John Deere customers can choose between pin-on bucket options as well as a Hi-Vis/ISO or JRB-style couplers, which are compatible with K-Series, L-series and Performance Tiering buckets and attachments. Customers needing extra reach on the job can add high-lift linkage to gain an additional 14 inches of hinge-pin height over standard linkage.

The sale includes a four-shaft industrial shredder, an incineration system and other facility assets.

Tiger Group, a Los Angeles-based auction service company, is hosting an online auction in collaboration with New Jersey-based Perry Videx LLC to sell the remaining assets of Aemerge RedPak’s former medical waste treatment facility in Hesperia, California.

“Opened in 2017, the plant destroyed and sterilized medical waste, converted it into clean energy and diverted up to 95 percent of treated waste from landfills,” says John Coelho, senior director of Tiger Commercial & Industrial. “This relatively new equipment continues to perform well and is available at a fraction of the original cost.”

Bidding for the online auction opened at 10:30 a.m. PT Sept. 13 and closes 10:30 a.m. PT Sept. 20.

The auction features a thermal oxidizer and patented Carbonizer incineration system, which was used to process organic waste in a negative-pressure, no-oxygen environment with high heat. The incineration system leaves three sterile co-products, including synthesis gas, treated glass and metals that can later be recycled and carbon char that can be repurposed as alternative fuel

A four-shaft industrial shredder, an Untha RS 100-1200-110—included in the sale is able to handle all forms of recycling. Other items up for auction include the following:

Plant utilities available in the sale include a vertical reciprocating conveyor, knife gate valves and articulated screw conveyors.

To inspect these assets or obtain additional information, email auctions@tigergroup.com or call 805-497-4999.

A public park in Rockford, Illinois, can benefit from an abandoned building demolition on its perimeter, say officials.

An abandoned seven-story building in Rockford, Illinois, is in the crosshairs of that city’s government, which would like to see the structure demolished to improve access to a city park.

Although the city was preparing to allocate as much a $3.1 million to take down the Founder’s Landing building, also known as the Lorden Building, the Rockford Register Star reports the Rockford City Council has awarded a  $1.4 million demolition contract to Loves Park, Illinois-based N-Trak Group.

According to an earlier news report from WIFR-TV, the mayor of Rockford is among those eager to take down the Lorden Building, which sits next to Davis Park in the city’s downtown.

The mayor and an alderman in Rockford are quoted as saying Davis Park has been underutilized during its nearly 30 years of existence, and the mayor places part of the blame on the presence of the abandoned building.

“You look over there you see this old, dilapidated building sitting in the center,” WIRF quotes Mayor Thomas McNamara as saying. “We’re going to be opening up the views of the Rock River,” he says of the planned demolition project.

Davis Park has at times been a concert venue, with additional plans calling for an amphitheater, a skate park and “urban beach [with] splash pads,” according to the mayor.

The seven-story building in question, constructed as a hosiery factory and later a furniture warehouse, has “been vacant for more than 25 years,” according to WIFR.

An archived Rockford Public Library article says a storage firm converted the 48,000-square-foot building into a warehouse in 1951. The building’s listing on Emporis.com indicates it was built in 1917 and 1918 and is made predominantly of concrete.

Contractor N-Trak is a as a woman-owned and operated business that provides underground construction, earthwork, road reconstruction, concrete construction, demolition, mobile crushing and aggregate and asphalt production services.