Obviously, some work needed to be done at the quarry -- which is located on the shores of Lake Champlain in Philipsburg, Quebec, about 35 miles southeast of Montreal -- for it to resume full-scale production. “The quarry was at the grass roots state,†said Jean-Nil Bouchard of Polycor. “Polycor did the complete production setting, the wood cutting and excavating of overburden and the full quarry development.â€
Surprisingly, now that the quarry is once again operational, the extraction methods are not much different than they were 40 years ago. “The quarry is similar to the old one,†said Bouchard. “The only changes are that today we utilize diamond wire instead of Helicoidal cable [for cutting], and we utilize a front end loader instead of an overhead crane [to remove blocks from the quarry site].â€