Dorchester County
Two cement plants in one lowcountry town
Two cement works sit in this town, which is more than most states manage in total. Giant Cement Company reports 183 employees to the federal mine regulator, carried as a facility operation working cement under mine 3800007. Quikrete’s Harleyville Mine & Plant reports 130, as mine 3800305. That is 313 cement employees in one place.
A third plant, Amrize’s at Holly Hill, is 25 miles away in Orangeburg County with 176. Inside a 25-mile radius that makes 489 cement employees.
Cement moves out in pneumatic bulk tankers rather than open-topped, and it moves constantly, because a kiln does not stop to suit a delivery schedule. That is a different truck and a different working week from a stone quarry.
MSHA Mine Data Retrieval System.
A port in the same market, and no evidence anybody uses it
Those three plants — the two here and Amrize’s 25 miles off in Orangeburg County — sit within reach of Charleston, Columbia and the port.
The North American Rail Network maintained by the Federal Railroad Administration and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics lists one rail yard near this town: Pregnall, operated by CSX Transportation, 2.01 miles out.
The material
Carbonate rock, and the rules that follow it
Those plants work a different rock, and two federal rules turn on that. At Giant Cement Company and at the Quikrete plant beside it the host rock is carbonate rather than quartz, so the respirable silica profile differs from a granite or sandstone operation.
The silica rule itself sets a permissible exposure limit of 50 micrograms per cubic metre with an action level of 25, and the metal and nonmetal compliance date of 8 April 2026 is now past.
Part 46 covers surface stone, surface limestone, sand and gravel among others; Part 48 covers underground mines, the surface areas of underground mines, surface coal and any surface mine not inside Part 46.
MSHA respirable crystalline silica final rule; MSHA Part 46 and Part 48 scope.
Pneumatic bulk tankers and mixers, dump trucks and aggregate haulers, day cabs and road tractors, flatbeds and rollbacks, service bodies, box trucks and straight trucks, and the pickups and work trucks that go with a crew.
The two kilns, the Pregnall yard 2.01 miles out and the run towards Orangeburg County are where most of it turns up.
- Is the tank part of it?On a pressure or bulk unit the certification history matters as much as the driveline does, and a blower that has been robbed for parts is the completeness line rather than a repair.
Across Dorchester County, and on the road that runs the 25 miles to Orangeburg County, the same trucks come up for sale for the same reasons.