LONE STAR BACK IN BUSINESS AGAIN

Lone Star Industries Inc. officials including the company's national president, William Troutman of Stamford, Conn. watched the loading of two barges along the firm's Mississippi River docking facilities Wednesday afternoon.

"We're certainly happy to see this shipment," said Troutman, who was in Cape Girardeau last week to congratulate employees for their efforts during the Flood of 1993.

The barges, loaded with cement, were the first to leave the Lone Star dock since June 20, when the Corps of Engineers issued an order to keep barges off the upper Mississippi River until floodwaters subsided.

"We've been shipping by truck," explained John Burian, director of operations at the cement manufacturing facility on South Sprigg. "This has cut down on our operations considerably."

Lone Star, which produces more than a million tons of cement a year, normally ships about 80 to 85 percent of it via river.

"We usually send out a couple of barge loads every day," said Burian. "Since the river closed we've had to scale back our production. We stockpiled materials at first, but our shipments had been curtailed to about 50 percent of the usual volume."

The company utilized as many as 100 semi-tractor-trailer trucks over the past two months.

The flood-necessitated slowdown has not resulted in layoffs at Loan Star, which employs about 200 persons.

"We utilized everybody in the battle against the flood," said Burian. "They worked on levees and kept production going. We devoted about a fourth of our workforce to flood control."

Troutman had good news for some Lone Star employees who suffered personal losses in the flood.

"The company is providing $25,000 to help employees who suffered personal losses in the flood," said Troutman. "One of our employees lost everything when a levee broke in Southern Illinois."

After providing assistance to the plant's employees, any excess funds will go to the Salvation Army and American Red Cross, said Troutman.

"We formed a special committee to distribute the funds," said Troutman. He said: "We have some great employees here. We'll do anything we can to help them."

Troutman was in Cape Girardeau as part of his annual tour to the company's six cement-producing plants and several other facilities operated by the firm in the United States.

Lone Star Industries, one of the largest manufacturers of cement in North America, became acquainted with the Cape Girardeau area when it acquired Marquette Cement here in 1982. Since then, the plant has undergone a complete upgrading, and is the largest in the Lone Star operation.

Included in the upgrading was the conversion of its coal-burning cement kiln into a system that also burns shredded rubber and toxic waste fuels. After months of testing and operation, the system is working well, company officials said.

"We're running at near capacity with our new kiln," said Norris Johnson, process engineer-control room supervisor at Lone Star. "We're saving more than seven tons of coal an hour." The new facility provides a tremendous economic improvement for Lone Star Industries, said Johnson.

"We're licensed to burn 2.4 tons of shredded rubber and more than 2,200 gallons of waste fuel each hour," said Johnson. "At the same time this is a great conservation measure because we're burning many materials here which have been banned from landfills."

Johnson said the conversion of its coal-burning cement kiln was not "something we just jumped into. We've been looking into burning supplemental fuel for a number of years."

During that time "we have to comply with federal and state guidelines," said Johnson. "All the testing has been done now, and we're burning toxic waste fuels and shredded tires."

A cement kiln is a great method to incinerate waste fuel, said Johnson. "Temperatures in the kilns range between 2,000 and 3,000 degrees, and the waste fuels have a stabilizing influence on the kiln," he said.

Johnson said wastes are coming into Lone Star from a wide area, mostly in liquefied form.

"Right now all of our waste fuels are being hauled in on a volume basis of about 5,000 gallons at a time," he said. "We can burn a truckload in about three hours."

Shredded tires are also being hauled in. "Every ton of tires we burn represents about 1.2 tons of coal saved," said Burian. "Right now we get tires from all over the United States."

Before the switchover, Lone Star was burning as much as 600 tons of coal each day in the production of more than 4,000 tons of cement daily.

"If, at a future date, a shredder operation is established here, we're prepared to use the shredded rubber," said Burian. "We'd like to see a shredder operation established here."

Lone Star gets much of its coal from Southern Illinois. "We have coal shipped in by truck and barge," he said. "The coal received from trucks is from Southern Illinois. Some of the barge coal is also from Illinois, but some of it is from Virginia. We still burn a lot of coal."

When Lone Star fired up its waste-burning kiln, it was one of only 29 plants burning wastes in the U.S.

Johnson explained that the facility won't be burning the types of materials most people think of as hazardous wastes, such as PCBs, dioxins, banned pesticides or herbicides.

"We will be burning four areas of wastes," he said. "About 30 percent of the waste fuel will come from waste oils like used automobile crankcase oil. About 20 percent will be materials such as paint thinner, urethane wood finish and paints, and 10 to 20 percent will be water wastes from industry.

"The balance of the materials are alcohols," he said. "That includes radiator solutions, methanol, resin substances like glue and auto-body filler, and acrylic nail polishes."

Cement kilns are ideal for burning hazardous wastes, said Johnson. Materials in the kilns burn at temperatures in excess of the 1,800 degrees required by the EPA for waste incineration. "The kilns at Lone Star reach from 2,000 to 3,000 degrees," he added.

The new energy process has resulted in additional employment at Lone Star. "We've added about 40 people since we first started the process," said Johnson. "That includes engineers, consultants and managers."

The Cape Girardeau Lone Star plant is one of 16 in the U.S. and the largest plant in the group, employing more than 200 persons.

Lone Star, which was founded in Texas in 1919 as International Cement Co., became Lone Star Cement Corp. in the 1930s when its headquarters was moved east. The name, Lone Star Industries Inc., was adopted in the 1960s.

The plant here has been a part of Cape Girardeau since 1910, when Portland Cement Co. started production. Marquette, a subsidiary of Gulf Western Industries, purchased the Portland Co. in 1923.

"The cement we produce here is used in dams, bridges, tunnels, residential structures and commercial buildings," said Troutman. "We ship it to a number of sites Nashville, Tenn.; St. Louis, Mo.; Paducah, Ky.; New Orleans, La."

Lone Star is continually upgradings its operations here, said Troutman. The company spends several million dollars each year to insure they are in tune with current technology.

A three-year upgrading project was completed in 1990. The firm also added an additional 342 acres to his holdings in 1990, when it purchased a farm from the Provincial Administration of the Vincentian Fathers, St. Louis.

The farm is adjacent to other Lone Star property and was one of two parcels placed for sale by the Vincentian Fathers. Still on the sales block is St. Vincent's seminary, which consists of 27 acres and some 23 buildings south of Morgan Oak Street.