If you own a stainless steel appliance in your kitchen, there’s a chance the materials used to make it were moved by Watco.
At the Ghent Terminal on the Ohio River in Ghent, Kentucky, we have 58 Team members, working in four crews 24/7, who offload barges that arrive loaded with recycled stainless steel scrap or alloys, including chrome.
That scrap is bound for North American Stainless, a Watco Customer whose mill is just across the highway from the terminal.
There, the mill works around the clock. The steel is formed into coils sent to the manufactures to be used in the making of appliances, as well as rebar, pipe, and wire used for screws, nuts, and bolts.
Terminal Manager Tim Bass said the operation unloads anywhere from 23 to 27 scrap barges in a good month — or nearly one per day — as well as 10 to 15 alloy barges per month.
“The mill doesn’t stop, so we don’t stop,” Bass said. “Although we did shut down one day last year for Christmas.”
Each one takes six to 10 hours — although sometimes it takes the entire 12 hours they’re given.
“There are a lot of moving parts,” Bass said.
Crews take covers off of the barges, unload the materials, and use skid steers to push the remaining scrap into a pile; the excavator removes the remaining scrap so all product is weighed and accounted for.
The scrap is loaded into trucks contracted through a third party, then taken to the mill.
At the mill, material handlers stack the scrap and operators use front end loaders to push the scrap into bays or on an overflow pad.
From there, as if baking a cake, various grades of stainless steel scrap and alloys are added to the charge basket — a large steel pot. It’s transferred to the furnace, in where it is melted and formed or cast for many different uses in the stainless steel industry.
The Teams unload scrap rail cars, too, at a rate of 5 to 10,000 metric tons.
Despite the risk associated with such a job, the terminal has a total recordable injury rate of 1.05 for Watco WTPS and 0 for Ghent, and was among the terminals that together were recognized by The American Equity Underwriters last month with a national safety stevedoring award.
The award brought the terminal recognition not just from the AEU, but from North American Stainless: Bill Long, assistant to the president of NAS, came to the terminal to take a photo of the award to send to his own team.
“That makes you feel good, for our Customer to be as proud of what we accomplished as we were,” Bass said.
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