Buried in stone

Dressed in dust-covered blue jeans and steel-toed boots, Tom Prince leaps into his red Chevrolet Cheyenne truck ready to deliver tools, water or whatever his fellow co-workers might need. With one foot on the gas pedal and the other on the brake, Prince grins widely.\n"Everyone has to work somewhere," he said. "It might as well be here."\nPrince is one of hundreds of workers finding steady work in Indiana's rich limestone communities. Nine quarries are operated in southern Indiana, most of which are in a 15-mile radius of Bloomington, according to the Geology Survey's Web site.\nThough many IU students are not familiar with the quarries or the workers, they are affected by both almost every time they step into a classroom. A majority of the limestone buildings across campus come directly from the quarries, which used to be a major economic staple for Bloomington.\nIndependent Limestone Company is one company that quarries Indiana limestone, also known as Salem limestone. The company was established in 1927, 100 years after the first quarry was opened near Stinesville, Ind. \nPrince has worked at ILC for 33 years. He was working as a janitor at IU in 1972 when Joe Meadows, a former ILC employee, approached him and asked if he wanted a job. Quarry work was not new to Prince, whose father and grandfather both worked for ILC. Now, Prince's 34-year-old son also works at ILC in the mill.\n"He must be following dad's foot tracks," Prince said. \nPrince's responsibilities have spanned nearly every area of quarrying, including drilling, cutting and overseeing general work. He said he makes about $20 an hour and those new to the job make about $17 an hour. \n"I can probably do anything they want done out here," Prince said. \nOutside quarry work spans through the hot summer months and might not end until late December.\n"These guys are tough," Prince said. "It don't seem like the heat bothers them."\nSteve Cummings, general manager of ILC, said employees typically work in his quarries for two years until all the usable stone runs out. Every new quarry starts with the same process. First, all the trees must be cleared away, followed by the dirt surface or topsoil. \nNext, Cummings' men must remove the clay base, which brings them six feet underground. Then the men encounter a layer of overburden rock which they also remove because it can't be used for industrial purposes. \nFinally, about 56 feet down, is the limestone, which, if they're lucky, will be more than 35 feet deep. Workers know they've maxed out their supply when they hit a black crusted surface known as the natural bed. Then, they must find a new piece of land to quarry. \nCummings said at ILC, they use two different groups of men to quarry the stone. The first is the saw group, or cutting department. This group uses modern equipment to slice off the top layer of limestone in long links. Next, the quarrying crew drills and breaks up the stone into more manageable blocks, which can weigh anywhere from five to 11 tons. They are then transported by frontloaders. \nILC is also one of the few quarries that has a mill on site. After cutting, the limestone pieces are prepared in the mill and then sold to fabricators who ship the final product to customers.\nIndiana limestone adorns many well-known buildings, such as the Empire State Building in New York City and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. After Sept. 11, 2001, Indiana limestone was shipped to the nation's capital to repair damage caused by a plane that crashed into the Pentagon. \nILC gave Bybee Stone Co. of Ellettsville, Ind., limestone similar to what was originally used to build the Pentagon. Bybee was able to recreate the look of the Pentagon's original stone by using old gangsaws, which the company still owns. Although historical pictures indicate the obvious similarities in technique, the advancements in technology have helped to more efficiently quarry limestone. \nHistorically, quarry men used star drills, sledgehammers and black powder to break up limestone, according to a pamphlet written by John Hill of the Indiana Geological Survey and Jim Owens of the Indiana Limestone Institute. Today, Indiana is a pioneer in the advanced saw drilling technique.\nSaws with industrial diamonds imbedded in the belts are attached to cars on tracks that cut downward into the stone. These belts help cut stone more smoothly, sometimes enough to shorten the preparation process in the mills, said Brian Keith, senior scientist at the Indiana Geological Survey.\nOnce the stone is cut, large empty air bags are placed into the crack to separate the slice from the rest of the stone. These air bags are filled by a compressor, and a loud pop signals when the rock begins to separate. The process is then repeated so the bags slide down further into the crack. After the bags are inflated, the slice of stone slowly falls onto a cushion of rocks where it is broken down and transported to the mill.\nAlthough 10 to 15 workers can be seen laboring away at the stone, the equipment used today has replaced some areas of human labor. The mobility of new technology allows a company to quickly process the limestone, as equipment can easily be set up and broken down at different job sites. Only a couple of people are needed to run a saw, compared to the manpower once necessary to manually split the rock, Keith said. \nPrince said in his 33 years of work, he has noticed fewer men working because of the advancement of machines. However, Cummings said this hasn't affected the amount of men working for the company.\n"We've had the same amount of staff for years," Cummings said. \nThe new technology also cuts down the risk of injury on the job, another change Prince said he has noticed. In addition, safety regulations enforced by the government require workers to take more precautions, such as requiring hard hats, steel-toed boots, earplugs and safety harnesses to be worn when preparing to separate the stone. Hearing tests are completed once a month, and eight hours of safety training are part of the employee orientation.\nSouthern Indiana is enriched with limestone not yet quarried, but Keith said the supply is limited. Rapidly expanding cities like Bloomington are being constructed on top of limestone beds. But Keith estimated there might only be another 50 to 100 years of resources remaining, although he said the problem isn't imminent.\nPrince, 54 years old, won't face the possibility of unemployment and is already staring down retirement. Prince said he will not be eligible for his full pension until age 62, but he's happy at his job.\n"There are a lot of good guys out here," Prince said. "It's a good place to work"