Topsoil Screeners and Horse Racing Tracks and Arenas

When race horse Barbaro, the winner of the 2006 Kentucky Derby, shattered his leg running the Preakness, serious questions were raised about the safety of the nation’s horse tracks.  Traditional dirt tracks have problems including rocks and holes on the track that pose a danger to highly-valued, pure-bred race horses.

Barbaro's home turf, Fair Hill, recently replaced one of its dirt tracks with a softer synthetic surface called Tapeta, becoming one of growing number of courses to make the switch. "When horse safety became so front and center, we decided it was time to do it," said Fair Hill General Manager Sally Goswell of the $1.8 million upgrade.

Unfortunately, the hefty price tag for converting to a synthetic surface is beyond the means for the thousands of owners of race tracks, show horse arenas, rodeos and horse training grounds across the country.

OMH ProScreen USA has a solution.  Manufactured by OMH Innovations USA, the PVG (Portable Vibratory Grizzly) series of topsoil screeners can separate out the rocks, gravel and other foreign material from the track soil.  Because the topsoil screener units are portable and self-contained, dirt sifting can be done on the job site. After screening, the sifted ”clean” dirt can be returned to the track or arena.

OMH ProScreen USA offers six different models to suit every job: the PVG 96, the PVG C96, the PVG 120, the PVG C120, the PVG 12V (which uses 12 volt deep cell batteries to power the motor) and the Screening Bucket.  OMH soil screeners are also economical and easy to use and move around compared to other commercial screeners.

For more information about OMH USA screening equipment call toll free 1-877-254-7903.  After hours for your convenience you can call Brad at 509-254-1129 or Darren at 509-994-4650.  Fill out the OMH ProScreen, Inc. USA Contact Us Form and receive a free DVD of OMH ProScreen USA soil screening products.  You can also watch videos of our different soil screener models at work on YouTube.

Tax Changes Help Businesses Purchase Equipment

There have been recent changes in the tax code that benefit business owners. Rather than amortizing equipment over several years, owners who purchase new equipment by December 31, 2009 can deduct its full cost – up to $250,000 – on their 2009 tax return.

To take advantage of this tax benefit, talk with your tax professional regarding Section 179 of the IRS Code. Using this strategy may very well improve business owners’ ability to purchase necessary equipment now rather than later.

Extreme Golf Courses

When the first golf championship was won in Edinburgh, Scotland by Doctor John Rattray  in 1744, no one could have imagined the evolution of the golf course in the next two and a half centuries.  What started out as Scotts using sticks to thwack pebbles around the sand dunes has become an international multi-billion dollar sport. Sophisticated, exotic and challenging course design are integral to the game as we know it today.

Unfortunately, the modern golf course has a serious issue in arid states like Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.  Plush grass long-drive greens, manicured putting ranges, all very high in water usage and maintenance.  Droughts and population increases have put a strain on municipalities to supply enough water to everyone without resorting to strict conservation measures.

A significant trend in golf course design and management is the creation of more naturalistic courses.  Using the habitat natural to the area has proven to be very cost-effective in the long-run. Once established, natural habitat golf courses need far less water and can be maintained with less labor than conventional courses, often requiring no pesticides or herbicides.

The design and construction of a natural habitat golf course are based on using what material is there in the raw and moving, separating, sculpting and placing the ground aggregate into a logically cohesive course. Conventional building equipment is still necessary for grading and moving soil but probably the most important piece of equipment is a topsoil, rock, dirt, sand, gravel screener for aggregate recycling.

Instead of bringing in topsoil or rocks, a soil screener is used to separate the material which then can all be used for their separate purposes.  The Portable Vibratory Grizzly (PVG) soil and rock screeners are designed for this kind of project.  Portable and durable, the OMH ProScreen USA PVG topsoil screener series offers 6 different models  - both 2-product and 3-product screeners - for different jobs and purposes.

The natural habitat golf course provides challenges to golfers not offered on conventional courses.  Winding through rough hills, gullies, valleys and other natural obstacles, the experience can be termed “extreme golfing”.   With water conservation and land protection very real concerns, the future of the modern-day golf course may very well lie rooted in its past.

Get the Lead Out - Possible soil contamination on firing and shooting ranges

Firing ranges and commercial shooting ranges are facing possible legal action for allowing the accumulated lead from bullets to seep into the ground water.  Studies are showing that more municipalities are investigating the possibility of lead getting into the communities’ potable water supply from shooting ranges.  Government regulations are changing to state that no levels of lead are safe in the human body.  Since lead poisoning has been determined to be the cause of severe mental retardation and a variety of other health conditions, any possible source of water and soil lead contamination is being looked at.

OMH Innovations manufactures a series of portable soil screeners to take care of this problem.  Soil from the firing range can be fed into the soil screening unit by a skidsteer or front-loader.  The 2-product screener (PVG 96 and PVG 120) easily separates out the bullets and lead fragments from the soil.  The 3-product screener (PVG-C 96 and PVG –C 120) goes one step further by separating out rocks and larger material from the soil and the bullets.

Disposal of the spent ammunition can then be done properly.  By doing this process routinely, owners of shooting and firing ranges may be spared hefty fines and fees for ground and water lead contamination in the future.  They also will be part of the solution instead of the part of the problem.

Natural Habitat Gardens

Water shortages are changing the landscape in arid states like Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.   Homeowners with plush green grass lawns and unnatural habitat gardens are especially feeling the pinch as water conservation policies have made it difficult and more expensive to keep all that vegetation watered.  In response, landscapers are seeing a trend toward more natural yards and gardens that require far less water and labor to maintain. 

A natural habitat yard is simply one that creatively uses ground aggregate and plants native to that region.  Going beyond the typical rock and cactus garden, landscape designers today are creating sophisticated views using recycled soil, rock and gravel that can easily be sculpted and placed in both small and large areas.

For the landscape businessperson, these changes often require additional equipment to their collection of mowers, edgers, hedgers, blowers and Bobcats. To really take advantage of the trend toward natural habitat yards, the landscaper now needs a topsoil screener unit to separate soil, rock, dirt, gravel and sand.

OMH ProScreen, Inc. USA manufactures a series of portable topsoil screeners that are designed for just such jobs.  Extremely affordable compared to other screeners on the market, OMH Portable Vibratory Grizzly screeners are fed by skidsteers and front-loaders.  These screeners can separate 30 to 50 cubic yards an hour, depending on the screener model and the material being screened. Once the ground aggregate is separated, the soil, rocks, gravel and sand can be used according to the landscaping design.

While it might be painful for proud homeowners to give up their manicured, fertilized grass lawns, many see the advantages to converting to natural habitat yards and gardens.  Not only do they require less labor to maintain, they save money on the homeowners monthly water bills.  Primarily, they conserve precious water resources which, in the end, helps everyone.

Back to top of page.