Heard a rumor about the new silt curtain rules for the Columbia River project

A guy from the Portland office said the new regs were just a scare and we could ignore them, but our foreman got a $5000 fine last month for a small spill. The inspectors are checking every single barge now, not just the big ones. Anyone else run into this on their site yet?

My dad told me to always wet my bricks for a full hour before laying them, but a foreman on a job in Charlotte said ten minutes is fine.

I've been doing the full hour soak my whole career because my dad, who taught me, swore by it. He said it stops the brick from sucking the water out of the mortar too fast. But last month, the foreman on a big commercial job saw me setting up my soak tubs and said I was wasting time. He claimed with modern mortar mixes, a quick ten minute dunk is all you need for most common bricks. I tried his way on a test panel, and honestly, the bond seemed just as strong after a week. Now I'm second guessing a core rule I learned. Has anyone else tested this or have a strong opinion on soak times?

I thought my broker was just guessing on rates until he showed me his live feed from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange last Tuesday.