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Daily Sparks Tribune
Business Friday
Friday, February 6, 2009
Restoring nature’s color is a rocky business
By Jessica Garcia

Cody Hardy and his employer, Fisher Industries, are working to restore the natural colors of a rocky terrain in the midst of developments such as the Interstate 580 project that will link Reno to Carson City.

In Hardy’s line of work, aesthetics and helping the environment play an important part in knowing he and his co-workers did their jobs.

“The person going 80 miles an hour (on the freeway) probably isn’t going to appreciate it,” he said. “Coming from us, we want to look back and see a job well done.”

But the restoration of rock color is vital for some road construction work for Fisher Industries of Reno, Hardy said, and it takes more than water.

With the help of Soil-Tech, a Las Vegas-based company that also has an office in Reno, some local companies are using Permeon to minimize the impact of construction work on the natural landscape as well as using the company’s methods of dust and erosion control and soil stabilization.

“It’s our job to balance construction with nature,” Soil-Tech Founder and President Jerry Stanley said. “Once you go in and build on nature in hillsides, it’s very standard to go in and tear things up and leave it.”

The I-580 project is such an example. The 8.5-mile stretch of freeway was planned by the Nevada Department of Transportation as a link between Reno and Carson City. Construction began in 2007 and it will have six lanes and five bridges upon its expected completion in 2011.

It’s a massive earthwork project that will wind through slopes, but those slopes will need some work to retain their original beauty, Hardy said.

Soil-Tech’s hydroseeding, used to apply turf to home lawns, parks and ball fields, also helps preserve some natural plants and brush.

“It’s a two-part process of reseeding slopes that we’ve disturbed or replaced the rocks on the topsoil and it helps keep the soil from eroding,” Hardy said to describe the process for I-580.

Stanley said Soil-Tech began as a hydroseeding business in February 1990.

“We just started playing with the dust control and soil stabilization products to stabilize hillsides and we just morphed into more different markets,” he said.

In addition to hydroseeding, Soil-Tech’s products include Chlor-Tex road binder, Plastex soil stabilizer and Permeon.

Permeon oxidates and vanishes, or “stains” a rock back into its natural color.

“If you have darker volcanic rock and you’re cutting a road into a mountain, it leaves a glaring scar which can be mitigated by Permeon,” said Stanley.

It is a permanent process that takes two to four weeks to set in, oxidize and color the rock.

Soil-Tech owns the rights to market Permeon, but the compound was developed at Arizona State University. Stanley said it’s more effective than water to go in and preserve hillsides and slopes.

“It’s a good choice,” Hardy said. “There’s no way to get on top of the slopes with heavy equipment and in the end, you’re saving money.”

Stanley said the savings on water are substantial.

“There’s value in minimizing construction damage,” he said. “I don’t know if you can put a number on that. I think it’s our obligation to balance construction with nature. You can’t put a price on that.”