Category Archives: Uncategorized
National Gypsum
National Gypsum is one of the largest gypsum wallboard producers in the world. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, the company is the second largest producer in the United States of gypsum wallboard operating 17 wallboard plants in 16 states.
National Gypsum operates 30 quarry sites that produce the gypsum that is necessary to manufacture gypsum wallboard.
Tuck Mapping Solutions, Inc. has been providing National Gypsum volumetrics for all of their 30 quarry sites for the past 10 years.
Vulcan Materials Company
Vulcan Materials Company is the nation’s largest producer of construction aggregates—primarily crushed stone, sand and gravel—and a major producer of aggregates-based construction materials, including asphalt and ready-mixed concrete.
Vulcan has 375 active aggregates facilities and over 120 facilities that produce asphalt and/or concrete, which also consume aggregates. All of these are located in the U.S. except for their large quarry and marine terminal on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
Tuck Mapping Solutions, Inc. has been providing volumetric surveys and calculations; pit volumetrics, digital orthoimagery and topographical mapping for over 100 of Vulcan Materials Company’s Central, Mideast and Southeast division quarries and sales yards for the past 10 years.
Balko Wind Farm
Balko is a 300 MW (approximate) wind farm located in Beaver County, Oklahoma. The project consists of 162 GE turbines. All of the green electricity generated at Balko is sold under long-term power purchase agreements with Public Service Company of Oklahoma and Western Farmers Electric Cooperative. Balko serves 111,000 homes.
Tuck Mapping Solutions provided aerial imagery, 1″ = 50′ planimetric mapping, aerial LiDAR data, two foot contour interval topographic mapping, and 0.25 foot GSD color digital orthoimagery for the design phase of this 25,300 acre site.
Ivanpah Solar Energy Facility
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a concentrated solar thermal plant in the Mojave Desert. It is located at the base of Clark Mountain in California, across the state line from Primm, Nevada. The plant has a gross capacity of 392 megawatts (MW). It deploys 173,500 heliostats, each with two mirrors focusing solar energy on boilers located on three centralized solar power towers.
The facility, costing $2.2 billion was developed by BrightSource Energy and Bechtel. The Ivanpah solar thermal power system uses BrightSource’s proven solar tower technology to produce clean, reliable solar electricity to more than 140,000 homes. Located in Ivanpah Dry Lake, California, the three-unit power system is built on approximately 3,500 acres.
Tuck Mapping Solutions provided aerial LiDAR data to support the design phase of this vast solar energy facility.
Hoopeston Wind Farm
The Hoopeston Wind Farm located in Hoopeston, IL is an 8,500 acre wind farm site that produces 98,000 kW of electrical power for 30,000 homes in Vermillion County, IL.
Tuck Mapping Solutions provided aerial imagery, aerial LiDAR data, 1″ = 50′ planimetric mapping, and one foot contour interval topographic mapping for Timmons Group to support the design of this wind farm site.
Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center
The Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center (VCHEC) is a $1.8 billion hybrid energy facility located in Wise County, Va. about 40 miles north of Bristol, Tenn. This facility burns a combination of coal and coal waste, plus up to 20% biomass (by energy input) each year, equivalent to about 1.08 million tons of wood (as-fired). The facility operating permits require burning a minimum of 10% biomass, provided adequate wood resources are available. Thus, a percentage of VCHEC’s electricity production is considered renewable under the Virginia RPS.
Tuck Mapping Solutions provided all of the aerial imagery and topographic mapping that was utilized for the site design. TMSI continues to provide quarterly digital orthoimagery updates for the plant.
Dallas Veterans Cemetery
Sevier County, TN Wildfire
Tuck Mapping recently donated 3 inch orthophotography to Sevier County to aid in the relief efforts after the wildfires from November 2016 burned over 17,000 acres in less than five days.
On Wednesday, November 23, 2016, the acre-and-a-half blaze began near the top of a steep hill called Chimney Tops outside of Gatlinburg, TN. It was treated using forest-firefighting techniques that, partially because of safety concerned in the rugged terrain, involved organizing a break-line perimeter around 400 acres. The fire occurred after the deciduous trees had shed their leaves adding more fuel to the forest floor that was already abundant with desiccated leaves, twigs, dead branches, and logs that had been sucked dry of their moisture by the months of drought. The leafless trees allowed more sunlight to hit the fuel, drying it out even more.
Sunday, four days after the fire started, was the first time that any firefighting aircraft were used on the fire. However, the aircraft dropping water and fire retardant on a fire could not put it out. Under ideal conditions they can temporarily slow the spread, which may be effective if firefighters on the ground can move in quickly to take advantage of the short-term change in fire behavior by constructing fire breaks, stopping the spread at that location. In this case, there were no firefighters in a position to take direct action. The fire expanded only slightly to about 6 acres through November 27th.
On November 28th, humidity levels dropped to 10% with wind gusts up to 87 mph. Over the next three days, sustained winds of 40mph were recorded across the area. Wind gusts carried burning embers long distances causing new spot fires to ignite across the area. In addition, high winds caused numerous trees to fall throughout the evening on Monday bringing down power lines across the area that ignited additional new fires that spread rapidly due to sustained winds of over 40 mph.
Power went out for thousands of customers in Sevier County. Live wires are at least part of the reason the Chimney Top Fire spread so rapidly overnight. The Gatlinburg Fire Chief said “These are the worst possible conditions imaginable.” Of course, high winds and downed power lines don’t usually spark such devastating wildfires. The key ingredient in eastern Tennessee was the ongoing, severe drought. All of Sevier County is in an “exceptional drought,” which is the worst on the U.S. Drought Monitor Scale. It means there are widespread crop and pasture losses, shortages in water reservoirs, streams and wells. In short, eastern Tennessee has turned into a tinderbox. The fire spread from 80 acres to 17,000 acres before it showed any signs of slowing down.
Unfortunately, 14 people passed away as a result of the fire. 2,460 structures were damaged or destroyed and there was an estimated 842 million dollars’ worth of damage.
To assist in the relief efforts, Tuck Mapping donated 3 inch aerial orthophotography of the entire affected area to Sevier County. The County will use this data for: planimetric mapping of structures, identification of structure status, emergency response plans, emergency warning system plans, update of structure rebuilds for GIS, projection of revenues from property taxes, building permit updates, routing for building supplies, and future zoning of development areas.