It is said there are only two seasons that exist in the Prairies, summer and construction. On Tuesday, about 150 members of the Saskatchewan Heavy Construction Association (SHCA) gathered to officially kick off the construction season.
The meeting included discussions around some of the challenges facing the industry including the shift to greener machinery.
In Regina, Kramer Ltd. supplies Caterpillar machinery to contractors.
As of January 16th this year, more stringent environmental regulations – known as Tier 4 Standards – have come into effect.
“With the new Tier 4 emissions, the government is trying to get us to prevent that black soot that you see coming out of the exhaust from entering the atmosphere,” said Jon Sereda, technical trainer at Kramer.
In the next three years, the majority of new machinery from manufacturers like Caterpillar will have to meet these new green standards.
“It means manufacturers have to make equipment to allow contractors to reduce those greenhouse gas emissions, but in terms of what it means for the contractors is it means there are hundreds of dollars more that they will have to pay out for the technology,” said Saskatchewan Heavy Construction Association President Shantel Lipp.
At Kramer Ltd., workers will have to be retrained on how to use the equipment.
“There is a lot more technology there, when you open up the hood to a piece of equipment and see all the electronics attached to it, it is kind of scary,” said Ron Murton, who presented at the SHCA conference.
But it is the larger fear, the impact of climate change, that the new regulations seek to reduce.
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