Silver Creek Materials
The staff at Silver Creek Materials likes to say that “all roads lead to Silver Creek Materials,” the Fort Worth mining company on the far west side that has been in business going on 40 years.
A lot of the company’s material is under buildings in town, as well as much of the Chisholm Trail Parkway.
The catchphrase is all the more relevant with the woolly mammoth of an inclement cold snap and the accompanying precipitation that claimed squatters’ rights as it moved in Wednesday night and Thursday morning, coating every major thoroughfare.
We were hoping simply to find a road that led to anywhere.
The city of Fort Worth did its level best to keep transit moving with the help of a contract it has with Silver Creek, which provides sand and rock for city departments for use on roads to improve traction and main breaks.
“Since Monday, we have we provided 3,000 cubic yards of sand [to the city and other customers in Fort Worth], which is about 150 fully loaded 18-wheelers of sand,” says CEO Marshall Dow. “We are stockpiling at the city’s request 400 cubic yards of utility rock, or 20 18-wheeler loads. That is the amount of material we are expecting to use, but if they want more, we can provide it anytime.”
Last year for the mother of all winter storms, the company delivered 3,000 tons of utility rock, as well as 655 cubic yards of 1-inch rock, much of it used for the more than 700 water main breaks.
Silver Creek has been supplying the city with raw materials or compost services for decades, says Dow, including the Lake Worth dredging project started 10 years ago. Silver Creek was the repository for millions of cubic feet of silt, which the company used to make compost.
Silver Creek has agreements with six to 10 municipalities on different kinds of mining materials, says Jennifer Lutz, a director with the company who handles those deals.
Silver Creek buys hard limestone and stocks it locally onsite for the city to have quick access to, Dow says. The sand is mined by Silver Creek onsite on the West Side and transported to a city site, where city employees amend it with salt or other compounds to create the mix they’re looking for.