For VTI shareholders and interested party, below is the latest I have got. The bad news is that it has been delayed to problem with arranging shipment of Bauxol. As you can see, people are very skeptical of Bauxol and hence intense probing and interrogation going on. Bottomline, they are going to give it a go. And note that VTI has actually reduced the price in order to get a foothold in the US market. If that $250 to $500/ton is a reduced price, I wonder what is the full price? More importantly from the article, it reaffirms that out of several competitors, only VTI has come out standing at the Gilt Edge US EPA trial, hence the glowing endorsement by the US EPA. And read the last paragraph which echoes my sentiment exactly.
Road builders Thursday came under intense questioning about their plans to clean up the environmental hazard at Skytop until one of their consultants objected that further inquiries would be premature and counterproductive.
The questions arose at the biweekly meeting of officials from the state departments of Transportation and Environmental Protection, Patton Township and other organizations who are trying to solve the problem posed by almost 1 million cubic yards of acid-producing rock unearthed two years ago at an Interstate 99 construction site.
Most of the questions focused on PennDOT's plans for Bauxsol, a highly alkaline commercial product derived from aluminum refining waste. An Australian company, Virotec, markets Bauxsol as a way to erase the water-contaminating capability of pyrite-laced rocks.
Two weeks ago, PennDOT said 4,000 tons of Bauxsol would be shipped to Skytop by late May or early June for large-scale tests to determine its effectiveness. But PennDOT said Thursday that the Bauxsol has not yet been shipped and its arrival is delayed until the third or fourth week of June because Virotec has had difficulty scheduling a barge to haul it from the Virgin Islands.
Patton Township manager Thomas Kurtz asked PennDOT officials and the department's environmental consultant, Skelly & Loy Inc., how they could thoroughly test Bauxsol if it doesn't rain much during the test period.
Rain increases acidic runoff from the fill areas.
Gary Byron, assistant director for DEP's 14-county northcentral region, said that, with the tests not yet begun, it was too soon to worry about lack of rainfall.
Hydrogeologist Walt Ebaugh, a ClearWater Conservancy board member, asked in turn -- without getting an answer -- how long the testing would last.
Robert Yowell, DEP regional director, said "There's a lot of questions," adding that DEP is waiting for a detailed engineering plan from Virotec and that PennDOT "needs to think about ... the protocol for evaluating" the tests.
"DEP is trying not to collaborate directly with PennDOT on this right now because we're the regulators and we kind of need to be independent here," Yowell said.
PennDOT district executive Kevin Kline, in response to a question by State College geologist Todd Giddings, said Virotec is reducing its price for the 4,000 tons that will be used in the test because the company wants to establish itself in the U.S. market.
When Giddings and Ebaugh continued to ask about the costs of the tests, consultant Gary Richards, who has been conducting small-scale Bauxsol tests, objected and brought the exchange to a close.
"I don't think we should commit to any of this," he said. "It's way premature. This is going to lead to speculation -- it's counterproductive."
Bauxsol competed against other acid-drainage remediation products in a year 2000 trial conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the Gilt Edge Mine acid-drainage site in South Dakota. It came away with an EPA endorsement, and that has enhanced its reputation and helped interest PennDOT.
Neil Bardach, Virotec's director for operations in the United States and Canada, said the Skytop remediation project would be Virotec's first substantial sale in the U.S., with the cost of previous demonstration projects here less than $200,000 apiece.
Richards identified two commercial applications of Bauxsol in the United States, one in Boston and another in Vermont, where he suggested about 1,000 tons of Bauxsol may have been used.
Virotec began work at the Elizabeth mine Superfund site in Vermont early last November, according to Virotec's Web site. Company Chairman Brian Sheeran told shareholders it was a "small contact" but "further proof" of EPA's growing interest.
It's not clear how much a Bauxsol remediation might cost at Skytop. Virotec reportedly charges $250 to $500 a ton for Bauxsol, and it is typically applied in proportions of 7 percent to 10 percent of the amount of material it counteracts. The almost 1 million cubic yards of acid rocks at Skytop amount to more than 1 million tons.
Sydney, Australia, attorney Chris Ford, who said by e-mail Thursday he has followed the development of Bauxsol, added that the reputation in Australia of Bauxsol creator, geochemist and university professor David McConchie is "unblemished," though "there are those that believe and those that don't."
"This technology has had numerous hoops to jump through -- it has done so successfully but it has taken years," Ford said. "People become impatient, others don't accept it works and want to criticize. The problem is, as I have said before, Bauxsol seems too good to be true. This project (Skytop) will go a long way to silencing the critics."
VTI Price at posting:
0.0¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
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