Granite’s Felton Facility First Quarry to Receive Green Business Certification

Over the past several years, Granite has pursued Green Business Network Certification for a number of our facilities and office sites. Most recently, our Felton Quarry and Asphalt Plant secured this designation. Environmental Engineer Emelia Michel shared the following article on the process of getting certified and what this designation means for Granite's environmental and sustainability goals.

Congratulations to our Felton Quarry for receiving a Certification from the California Green Business Network!?

Groundbreaking Green Business:

We’re excited to announce that Granite’s Felton Quarry and Asphalt Plant is our most recent facility to receive certification as a California Green Business, demonstrating the team’s commitment to conserve resources, prevent pollution, and pursue opportunities to be better stewards of the land. Felton is the first quarry operation in the state or nation to receive this distinction.

The certification process helped us examine our impacts in several areas, including community, transportation, energy, water, wastewater, solid waste, and pollution prevention. Going through certification was a chance to show our community partners what sustainability looks like at a aggregate mine.

So how did Felton Quarry demonstrate our sustainable practices?

1. We are Water Wise:

Our aggregate products include washed sand, which goes through a water intensive process. We take several steps to reduce wastewater and control impacts to water sources. For instance, we draw water from an onsite well that is monitored to mitigate our impacts to local groundwater resources. At the same time, we reuse as much water as possible with a clarifier system that removes sediment from water and recirculates that used water back into our aggregate washing process. To prevent any pollution, settling ponds make sure any process water does not leave the site or impact waterways. Finally, as a site regulated by the Clean Water Act, our crews implement Management Practices to keep our site clean and protect water resources. ?

2. We Reduce Waste and Conserve Resources:

The main ingredients of asphalt are petroleum oil and rock. The petroleum resources we use come from the bottom of the refinery barrel: unable to be used as fuel like other petrochemicals, the asphalt industry welcomes these ‘wastes’ as the binding agent for our roadways. The rocks we use in our mixes vary depending on the application—an airport has different requirements than a driveway—but whenever we can, we use recycled or local rock. This can come from recycled asphalt pavement (RAP), granite mined onsite at the Felton Quarry, or from recovered concrete material. For example, we recycled around 48,000 tons of concrete debris from Santa Cruz County disaster cleanup efforts after the devastating CZU fire in 2020.

We report our recycled materials through?CalRecycle’s reporting system every quarter. In 2021 alone, we processed 72,000 tons of recycled material (asphalt and aggregate) for construction end users in Santa Cruz County. In fact, we are industrial ecologists; we use waste as a resource, try to ‘close the loop,’ and create partnerships with other industries to effectively use their waste in our products.

Looking Forward:

There are many other measures we took to be mindful of our impacts besides focusing on waste and water, but for the sake of brevity, you’ll have to come visit us in person to explore more. All of us at Granite know that we have lots of opportunities to improve our operations over the next 100 years, and we will get there with ingenuity, adaptation, hard work, and resilience. Granite is proud to be recognized as a driving force for a green economy. Every business needs to determine?what ‘green’ means to them. The innovation our society needs to thrive will not happen overnight, but we hope that our Granite teams, like those at the Felton Quarry and Asphalt Plant, can collaborate with our community and industry partners to push for changes that last and benefit us all.?