Hoping it’s ok to ask this in this sub, since maybe a man on here works in a quarry and can answer this question that I’m not quite sure how to explain..
On my commute for work, I drive past quarries. There’s one that has it’s entrance and exit literally right off the road has water trucks come out frequently and drive slowly to just let water out on the road and the entrance/exit area.
Is this to prevent dust/dirt from building up on the path the dump trucks take so they don’t lose traction? I can’t think of how this would be beneficial for the stone that is collected from the quarry, so I’m thinking it has to do with the road to get down into/up from it?
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Keep dust down. If they didn’t, anything down wind would be absolutely covered.
I don’t work in a quarry but I always assumed it was to keep the dust on the ground and not in the air. That or working th quarry is thirsty work
Dust control. Dust rides the wind, mud doesn’t.
This is common for heavy traffic dirt roads but stuff like quarries or sand plants where there’s a lot of silica in the dust it’s an even bigger safety hazard than most places.
In some places it’s water, in others it’s oil. Used to be the ‘bad’ stuff, mostly that’s been replaced with either water or veggie oil, which doesn’t evaporate so lasts longer and bio-degrades.
And aside from keeping it out of the moving equipment where it clogs up filters and abrades moving parts (think of sand in your shoes or other more sensitive locations), keeping dust down improves visibility which is an important safety aspect.
Dust
Dust suppression, underground we use permanent sprinklers on the high traffic areas for the same thing, doubles as a refreshing shower in an open station machine.
Same as on road work: everything is sprayed to minimize dust