2020 AWARD OF EXCELLENCE
The OSSGA Award of Excellence is given to sites that demonstrate an ongoing commitment to community relations, operational improvements, and sustainable practices.
Walker Aggregates Inc.
Town of Fort Erie
Pursuing Excellence
Walker Aggregates’ Ridgemount Quarries was the 2020 recipient of the OSSGA Award of Excellence for its stewardship across all of the award’s key criteria.
For the Ridgemount Quarries team, it is a priority to be a good neighbour. The company employs specialized technology and equipment to monitor and mitigate the noise, dust and vibrations caused by its operations and maintains a traffic safety program to keep its roads safe. The site also contributes to the health and well-being of its community through cash and material donations. In 2020 alone, it gave approximately 168 tonnes of stone to Habitat for Humanity for a housing project in Port Colborne and made cash donations to the Friends of Fort Erie’s Creeks and the Greater Fort Erie Centre for the Arts. Beyond this, Ridgemount Quarries holds educational programs and site tours, and hosts paleontologists from all over North America.
Innovation & leadership
Ridgemount Quarries’ commitment to sustainable operations is equally noteworthy. Since 1999, the site has been conducting a rehabilitation project that aims to create a lake for recreational and natural activities. It also recycles concrete and asphalt from local infrastructure construction projects for reuse in the market and makes an effort to reuse equipment, e.g., its tire retreading program and moving assets to other Walker sites. The company incorporates energy-saving technologies and processes and carries out impactful recycling programs for other materials.
These and other efforts are part of Walker Aggregates’ EARTH 1st philosophy, which challenges sites to: Efficiently operate, Acknowledge our part, Reduce our impacts, Take time to plan, Higher environmental performance, and be the first in Innovation and Leadership.