To keep up to date with this breakdown of news in the

United States and Canada, visit www.AggMan.com for daily updates.

Arizona

A $400 million new cement plant, the first in the state in more than 50 years, plans to ramp up production as soon as the economy improves. The Arizona Republic reports that the Drake Cement plant, near Paulden, acquired three suppliers in the region and branded them Drake Materials. The plant has been in the works since the 1990s and is one of three currently operating in the state. “The market is very difficult,” Brad Belt, senior vice president, told the newspaper. “There is not enough demand for any producer in the state to be running 24 hours a day. In these markets, we run the plant as long as we can until our storage capacity is full, and then shut down and fire up again when it is time to replenish.”

California

In mid-June, the Duarte City Council voted unanimously to appeal a judge’s ruling in favor of neighboring Azusa and a mining plan for Vulcan Material Co.’s Azusa Rock Quarry. According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Duarte City Manager Darrell George said, “The council’s decision to appeal continues Duarte’s belief that the Vulcan EIR is seriously flawed and that destroying the Van Tassel ridge is the wrong thing to do.” A judge ruled in Azusa’s favor on all counts, including a claim that the environmental impact report was flawed. Azusa councilman Keith Hanks told the newspaper that he was disappointed in Duarte’s decision to appeal, but confident that his city would prevail.

Connecticut

Ken Evarts, president of Seashore Construction Co., appealed a cease-and-desist order for his operation, but the appeal was rejected. The New Haven Register reports that the Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously agreed that Evarts should no longer be able to extract and remove material from his property. Evarts’ attorney said that extraction had been taking place since the turn of the century and should be allowed to continue if it predated zoning laws, which went into effect in 1953. The town engineer presented two photos of the land from 1951 and 1971 showing that it was farmland at that time. The Zoning Board of Appeals chairman told the newspaper that it did not have enough evidence to say that the non-conforming use predated zoning laws and rejected Evart’s appeal.

Maine