A riverside aggregate loading facility makes waterway transport a cost-efficient no-brainer.

Because river transportation is safe, efficient and economical, it’s the most logical choice for producers who are able to tap into it. After considerable forethought and planning, an Oregon-based producer decided to harness the power of the nearby Columbia River. “When we acquired some properties on the river, we knew we had to look seriously at barging, as we knew it would be the most cost-effective way to move material,” says Morse Bros. Inc. Transportation Manager Dave Jensen.

21st Century Barge Loading
So when the company created its new Waterview aggregate processing site near the town of St. Helens, a state-of-the-art loading facility was erected to allow the cost-efficient shipping of aggregate by barge into the Portland Metro area. More than sixty percent of the material processed at the Waterview location is shipped via the river. The remaining thirty-plus percent is transported by truck or by rail. “River transport is clearly the most economical as we can move 8,000 tons of material at one time, as opposed to putting 35-tons on a truck,” says Jensen who estimates that shipping by barge, rather than by truck, saves the company more than $3 per ton. In its first seven months of operation, the barge loading operation saved the company more than $1 million in transportation costs alone.

One of the major hurdles in this initiative was engineering the transfer of material from the mining site to a wash plant and crushing plant located on the other side of the Columbia River Highway; followed by the stockpiling of finished product, and the loading of material onto an 8,000-ton barge. The company needed to find the right conveyor system for a barge loading application.

Custom Engineered Solution
Ultimately, Jensen consulted with engineers from Superior Industries. The recommended solution was the use of a fully automated telescoping radial stacking conveyor that would be custom-engineered to feed material onto any barge, large or small. For this application, Superior custom built a 48” x 150’ TeleStacker conveyor, eliminating the normal undercarriage featured on a land-based TeleStacker conveyor, so that it could be mounted on a dock structure 360 ft. out into the river where there is adequate water depth.

“We need the ability to raise and lower the conveyor more than we need any radial movement, as we have to adjust to the different stages of the river throughout the year. We also need to easily adjust the discharge height as the weight of the load causes the barge to drop as much as 13-feet in the water. We can also telescope out to the far side of the barge and retract in as we complete the loading process,” says Jensen who goes on to explain that the Superior TeleStacker conveyor is combined with a programmable logic controller (PLC) and a wireless remote control package.

At 2,000 tons per hour, the barge can be loaded and ready to travel in four hours. “In the summer season when demand is high, we may load as many as three barges per day, up from a normal average of three barge loads in a week’s time,” adds Jensen.

“Also, as a producer, we are concerned with minimizing the number of trucks we use. Certainly there are risks involved in riding up and down the highways, and removing congestion is a win/win for everyone,” he says, noting that the use of innovative conveyor systems for material transfer and barge loading will remove more than 11,000 truckloads annually from area roads.