Construction Equipment

Burglars stole a construction gauge containing radioactive material and other construction equipment from a State Highway Administration trailer at Ritchie Highway and Route 648 in Severna Park Sunday night, authorities said.The gauge is used to measure the moisture and density of soil. It is yellow, 2 feet long by 18 inches wide and weighs 25 to 30 pounds. It is in a rectangular carrying case and has a symbol identifying it as containing radioactive material, officials said.Anyone who finds the gauge should call Anne Arundel County police at 222-8700 or the Maryland Department of the Environment at 631-3003.

In 2004, the port of Baltimore bought a pair of cranes so it could stack tractor-trailer-size metal containers. It built sheds to stow away ton upon ton of paper. And it agreed to move its cruise ship terminal from one berth in Dundalk to a less crowded one in South Locust Point. The waterfront musical chairs is likely to continue in 2005 as consumers demand more products from overseas, from clothes to high-tech equipment to food. Already, the port is looking for new spaces for the growing number of tractors going out of the port and the automobiles coming in. But the harbor has become attractive to more than the boots and flannel crowd.

John E. Logan Sr., whose fascination with the construction business began when he was a youngster and culminated in his founding of a Baltimore construction equipment supply firm, died Thursday of complications of a stroke at his Guilford residence.Mr. Logan, who was 87, retired in 1978 as president of McClung-Logan Equipment Co., which he had started in 1939."He grew up in Texas, in Baltimore County, and worked along with his brothers in the quarries there," said a son, John E. Logan Jr., secretary and treasurer of the Washington Boulevard company.

For 3 1/2 months, the yawning sinkhole once hidden deep inside Mount Vernon's Cathedral Street has detoured commuters, flummoxed out-of-town tourists and frustrated valet attendants trying to park cars in the shadow of a construction zone. But take heart. The end is near. City officials predict that the emergency sewer repair project on the 600 block of Cathedral St. will be finished by Dec. 1. "I would say we should be good by Thanksgiving, the end of the month at the latest," said Mike Schultz, the project's manager at the Department of Public Works.

POLICE LOG* Priest Bridge Business Park: Someone stole $5,000 worth of construction equipment Friday morning from Gardiner and Gardiner Contracting in the 2100 block of Baldwin Ave.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes in Anne Arundel County.Severn: Someone stole the scoop from a backhoe over the weekend while construction equipment was parked at a construction site across from Piney Junction Boulevard and Piney Orchard Parkway.Crownsville: Vandals knocked six mailboxes off their posts between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Monday in the 1700 block of Woodlore Road.Pub Date: 3/05/97

POLICE* Westminster: An employee of a construction company reported someone broke into a vehicle Wednesday on LaCosta Circle and stole two circular saws, a gasoline generator, a pneumatic nail gun and other construction equipment. The loss is estimated at $3,030.A resident of West George Street reported her vehicle was broken into and personal property was taken on Tuesday. The loss is estimated at $610.Someone broke into a car parked on Johahn Drive and stole property valued at $60, a resident told city police on Wednesday.

James L. Bramble Jr., retired sales manager for a construction equipment company, died Friday at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis of a stroke. He was 61. Mr. Bramble, who had lived in Severna Park since 1975, was born and raised in Norfolk, Va. After graduation from high school in 1958, he served four years in the Marine Corps. He was president of the old Wesco Heavy Equipment Co. in Baltimore from 1975 until the late 1980s, then sales manager for Chesapeake High Lift, a Columbia construction equipment supply company, until retiring in 1999 on a medical disability.

A Laurel woman was attacked and robbed of her purse Monday evening by a man who had opened the door to her apartment complex for her, county police said.The woman, 38, told police that she and her child were entering the lobby of the Horizon Square Apartments in the 3500 block of Route 198 in Laurel about 6: 45 p.m. When she tried to open the front door with two grocery bags in her arms, the man offered his assistance. But after she entered the lobby, the man grabbed her purse and the bags.

Anne Arundel County police recovered yesterday more than $100,000 worth of construction equipment that had been stolen in hundreds of break-ins of vehicles in three jurisdictions over the past year, police said.Ronnie Merritt Fisher, 45, who owns the residence at the 2500 block of Arbuton Ave. in Baltimore where the goods were found, was arrested and charged with theft, police said.Ralph Greaves, the Anne Arundel County detective who headed the investigation, said the equipment was bought from the group of 10 to 12 thieves who had stolen it. The recovered items includes generators, air compressors and battery-powered drills.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration yesterday announced a regulation that within a decade would cut 90 percent of the harmful pollution from construction equipment, farm equipment and other off-road diesel engines and 99 percent of the sulfur from the fuel they use. "It's a big moment in terms of clean air history," Environmental Protection Agency administrator Mike Leavitt said. "That black puff of diesel smoke will be a thing of the past." The regulation is expected to prevent 12,000 premature deaths, 15,000 heart attacks and 6,000 asthma-related emergency room visits for children every year, according to the EPA. Even many of the administration's usual critics praised the regulation, which is expected to be signed today, as the best thing President Bush has done for the environment.

Fred LeMaster is usually the first to arrive at the Bellows Spring Elementary School construction site each morning. But when he swung his truck headlights around yesterday before dawn, he saw someone had already been there -- someone bent on destruction instead of construction. LeMaster's office trailer lay on its side, and two other trailers nearby were down, one hanging partially over a cliff. "My first thought was that the wind blew it over," said LeMaster, who is one of the construction superintendents.

James L. Bramble Jr., retired sales manager for a construction equipment company, died Friday at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis of a stroke. He was 61. Mr. Bramble, who had lived in Severna Park since 1975, was born and raised in Norfolk, Va. After graduation from high school in 1958, he served four years in the Marine Corps. He was president of the old Wesco Heavy Equipment Co. in Baltimore from 1975 until the late 1980s, then sales manager for Chesapeake High Lift, a Columbia construction equipment supply company, until retiring in 1999 on a medical disability.

JCB Inc., a British maker of construction machinery, said yesterday that it is moving its North American headquarters from White Marsh to a suburb of Savannah, Ga. The White Marsh facility employs about 90 people and serves as a headquarters and a distribution site. The company said it has not decided if the distribution site, where fewer than half of the 90 employees work, will remain in operation. JCB broke ground in October 1998 for a new equipment-manufacturing facility in Pooler, just outside Savannah.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- With their flawless docking behind them, Discovery's astronauts went on a spacewalk late last night to spruce up the outside of the new international space station.Tamara Jernigan and Daniel Barry floated out of the space shuttle around 11 p.m. The seven-story-plus station loomed above them, jutting straight out of Discovery's cargo bay."Unbelievable!" Jernigan said as she unlocked the hatch.Among their duties during the six-hour outing: attaching a pair of 5-foot cranes to the exterior of the station, hanging out three bags of tools for future spacewalkers, installing a glare-reducing shroud over a docking target, and covering an exposed pin.The spacewalk was expected to last into the wee hours of this morning.

Anne Arundel County police recovered yesterday more than $100,000 worth of construction equipment that had been stolen in hundreds of break-ins of vehicles in three jurisdictions over the past year, police said.Ronnie Merritt Fisher, 45, who owns the residence at the 2500 block of Arbuton Ave. in Baltimore where the goods were found, was arrested and charged with theft, police said.Ralph Greaves, the Anne Arundel County detective who headed the investigation, said the equipment was bought from the group of 10 to 12 thieves who had stolen it. The recovered items includes generators, air compressors and battery-powered drills.

For 3 1/2 months, the yawning sinkhole once hidden deep inside Mount Vernon's Cathedral Street has detoured commuters, flummoxed out-of-town tourists and frustrated valet attendants trying to park cars in the shadow of a construction zone. But take heart. The end is near. City officials predict that the emergency sewer repair project on the 600 block of Cathedral St. will be finished by Dec. 1. "I would say we should be good by Thanksgiving, the end of the month at the latest," said Mike Schultz, the project's manager at the Department of Public Works.

The green-and-yellow John Deere tractors and the Case combines snake along Dundalk Marine Terminal, waiting to be loaded onto ships bound for the vast farms of Turkmenistan and the rice fields of the Philippines.Because of a boom in exports of construction and agricultural equipment, Baltimore's longshoremen have twice as much work to do in loading and unloading massive ships like the NOSAC Sun.That growth, sparked by emerging new markets and a weak dollar, has helped transform the port of Baltimore into a gateway to the world for agricultural and construction equipment.

Police Blotter is a sampling of crimes in Baltimore city and county.Western DistrictArmed robbery: A man wielding a semiautomatic handgun robbed another man of his silver 1994 Lexus and other property late Sunday in the 2500 block of W. Franklin St. The victim had pulled into a gas station lot to use a pay phone and was confronted by the robber, who stole $300 and a gold chain worth $150, then drove off in the Lexus.Southeastern DistrictShooting: A 30-year-old man told police he was wounded in the wrist after hearing three or four gunshots late Saturday while walking in the 2400 block of E. Fairmount Ave. He was released after treatment at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.