Lafarge announces that its Aggregates SE business unit, based in Douglasville, Georgia, has been named one of only four winners nationwide of the 2008 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Environmental Performance Track award for "environmental achievements above and beyond legal requirements," and the only winner in the Small Facility award category.

Lafarge won the prestigious EPA award for the environmental performance of its Douglasville Quarry. The quarry manufactures and sells heavy building materials, including quarry extraction of aggregates (broken stone and similar materials used as components in concrete). During the 2003-2006 period, the EPA citation noted, the Douglasville Quarry achieved the following environmental improvements:

• In 2003, the quarry set a goal to increase its land and habitat conservation by 0.22 acre. By 2006, Lafarge had created nearly three acres of improved wildlife habitat for such animals as whitetail deer, rabbit, red fox, raccoon, turtles, bats and numerous birds including wood duck and bluebirds. This initiative received certification through the Wildlife Habitat Council's "Wildlife at Work" program.
• Lafarge set a goal to reduce its discharge of sediment from stone processing by increasing the capacity of its retention pond to minimize the discharge of waste water and by recycling the water back to the plant for reuse in processing and dust control. The result was a 96 percent reduction in sediment leaving the site.

Accepting the EPA award on behalf of Lafarge at an award ceremony held in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 21 was Matthew Stewart, Lafarge Director of Environment for the Eastern U.S. Region of the Aggregates and Concrete business unit, based in Alpharetta, Georgia.

The EPA's Performance Track program - which the federal agency describes as its "most comprehensive environmental leadership program" - recognizes and drives environmental excellence by encouraging facilities with strong environmental records to go above and beyond their legal requirements.

EPA made its selection based on members' progress toward achieving environmental performance goals and the breadth and challenge of these goals.

The awards dinner was held in conjunction with the fifth annual National Environmental Partnership Summit, an interdisciplinary gathering of environmental professionals and assistance providers from diverse sectors all over the country and world. It was created five years ago with the merger of the annual meetings of the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable, the Compliance Assistance Providers' Forum and the Performance Track Participants' Association.