Judge calls for calm in bitter battle between demolition firm and multinational contractor.

A former boxer and demolition contractor, David Ballard, has alleged that the construction giant Multiplex, now Brookfield Multiplex, and one of the most powerful unions in Australia, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, conspired to put him out of business.

The allegations form part of a court case that has become so bitter that the presiding judge has been forced to call for calm on several occasions. Almost every day there have been allegations of witnesses too fearful to go home, too nervous to swear affidavits. Anyone brave enough to give evidence can expect the barristers to trawl through their financial, medical and employment history in the most excruciating detail.

“I am not leaving this earth until this is solved,” Ballard told the Sydney Morning Herald this week. ”I got my life ruined once and I have had unbelievable things written about me that I am a standover man,” he said.

If Ballard loses this case he stands to lose everything again. His friend of 30 years, Roy Thompson, a reclusive Sunshine Coast developer and breeder of some of the finest horses in the land, has lent him money to run the case, secured by a mortgage against the Ballard family farm near Mudgee. If the defendants lose, the damages are likely to run to millions, which would deal a serious blow to the union, less so to Multiplex. But more importantly, the case is likely to spark renewed debate about practices in the building industry and further afield in the booming mining industry, where the CFMEU has coverage.

Read the full story here.

Our predictions of the closure of the SED exhibition make the news no easier to bear.

There are times, frankly, when it would be nice to be proven wrong; Saturday afternoon at about 2.55, for example, just after we have despairingly predicted yet another defeat for our beloved West Ham United.

With the news that the UK’s largest construction equipment exhibition – SED (Site Equipment Demonstration) has succumbed to the recession and management that is Mr Magoo-like in its short-sightedness, we would have liked to have been proven wrong again.

Sadly, after 45 years of loyal and uninterrupted service, SED has closed, a victim of the current economic crisis and an organiser that can’t see construction for the pile of beans it is too busy counting. As we have mentioned previously, the exhibiton’s organisers were once of and for the industry. They were on site, come rain or shine, up to their knees and axles in the mud that seemed to categorise the early SED shows.

Sadly, they were replaced by men in sharp suits, sporting sharp haircuts, and wielding sharp economic scalpels aimed at anything that didn’t turn a fast buck or which might threaten to get their shiny shoes dirty.

That the UK construction and demolition equipment industry is in recession there can be little doubt. But while organisers in years gone by would have ridden the industry lows to gain from the industry highs, the current incumbents lack such foresight and fortitude, and would apparently prefer to give up than to fight.

As a result, some very good people now find themselves out of work, consigned to the employment scrapheap by people devoid of passion for this industry of ours, and the cajones to stand by an industry from which they have happily drawn sizable profits for years.

Of course, there is always the vain hope that someone will rescue this superb show before the shutters come down for a final time. And given the cyclical nature of this business, anyone bold enough to do so would surely see their bravery rewarded manifold. But, in the meantime, our thoughts are with the team behind what used to be “the greatest show in earth”.

Unexploded bomb discovery results in major evacuation.

Part of a Devon city centre has been evacuated following the discovery of an unexploded bomb.

Workers at Wring Group discovered the partially buried device at a demolition site in Plymouth on Notte Street, at about 1540 GMT. Neighbouring buildings have been evacuated and a 300m cordon has been put in place while the Ministry of Defence (MoD) assesses the situation.

The MoD said it is thought to be a bomb from World War Two.

Initial analysis suggests unseen crack may have caused stack to fall wrong way.

Although her company is still on site analysing the fallout from yesterday’s failed smokestack implosion, Advanced Explosive Demolition president and owner Lisa Kelly insists that the explosives detonated correctly, but an undetected crack on south side of the tower pulled it backward.

In an interview with the Dayton Daily News, Kelly says: “It’s property damage and it’s not life,” she said. “That’s the most important thing — that no one was injured.”

Demolitions are a highly technical process. “(But) it’s not without some uncertainty,” said Tim Suter, FirstEnergy manager of external affairs.

All of the debris landed on the FirstEnergy property and none of it went into the Mad River or onto the nearby railway tracks. An estimate of the cost of the damage wasn’t available Wednesday.

Suter said he hasn’t seen anything like it before. “Fortunately no one was injured,” he said.

FirstEnergy has worked with the demolition contractor, Advanced Explosives Demolition Inc., on other jobs, Suter said, and a lot of preparation went into the project.

“They’ve taken other towers twice the size of this one down without anything going on,” he said.

The Idaho-based, family-owned company has been featured in a series on TLC, according to its website. They travel the country with their children doing demolitions. The AED website says that Eric Kelly has “a perfect safety record of no accidents in 27 years.”

“Nobody’s happy with things that go wrong in life, and sometimes it’s out of our hands and beyond anybody’s prediction … We’re all extremely thankful no one was injured or hurt,” Lisa Kelly said.

Read more here.

Company cited for “willful and serious violations of safety standards.

OSHA has cited USA Demolition Inc. for alleged violations of safety standards at a Burlington worksite. The contractor faces a total of $86,950 in proposed fines, chiefly for fall hazards identified during OSHA’s inspection of the site where USA Demolition was removing a building facade.

OSHA’s inspection found USA Demolition employees exposed to falls from 10 to 20 feet while working without fall protection on the building’s roof. This situation resulted in the issuance of one willful citation with a proposed fine of $70,000. A willful violation is one committed with intentional knowing or voluntary disregard for the law’s requirements, or with plain indifference to worker safety and health.

Other fall hazards stemmed from workers entering and exiting elevated aerial lifts without fall protection, standing on the railing of a scissors lift, working from an aerial lift without being tied off to the boom or basket, and standing atop an unopened stepladder. In addition, workers were not provided adequate training in fall protection and ladder use, and a competent person did not conduct inspections that would have identified and corrected these conditions. Employees also lacked head, eye, and face protection and were exposed to a potential crushing hazard from a damaged lifting sling. These conditions resulted in the issuance of 11 serious citations with $16,950 in proposed fines. A serious citation is issued when there is substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.

Read the full story here.

Incident on Ohio smokestack implosion has implications for entire industry.

The gods of irony and timing were hard at work yesterday weren’t they? Just a few hours after an Australian official had warned that a bridge implosion was “not a public spectacle”, up steps Advanced Explosive Demolition (AED) to fell a seemingly straightforward smokestack in Ohio, only to see it fall in the wrong direction taking overhead power lines with it. The fact that AED’s Explosive Demolition Contractor of the Year award was probably still on its way from Amsterdam to the US merely added salt to an already open wound.

The Australian official is wrong, of course. Just saying that an implosion is not a public spectacle does nothing to remove the public’s endless fascination with things that go bang in the night (or day for that matter).

The AED incident does, however, raise some serious issues, aside from the more obvious “why did the stack fall the wrong way” question.

For one thing, the raw video we uploaded yesterday shows that the blast “involved” several unnamed children. Now we know from experience that Eric and Lisa Kelly are proud of the fact that they work as a travelling family unit; and that’s surely better than children being raised with a single parent while the other darts about the world blowing stuff down. But we remain firmly of the belief that a demolition site is no place for children, regardless of their level of experience or that of their parents.

Furthermore, there is the issue of the negative impact of such incidents on the wider demolition industry. AED operates in a very public way, often allowing TV cameras to follow their every move. Unfortunately, as many troubled celebrities have found to their cost, the media operates on a “live by the sword, die by the sword” basis. And while they’re happy to help you raise your profile, if it makes for good viewing or readership figures, they will not hesitate to cut you down at a moment’s notice.

When we uploaded the raw video of the failed implosion yesterday afternoon (UK time), we found just two references to it on our news stream. This morning, Twitter has in excess of 900 and those for Google and several other news agencies are equally filled with references to “botched explosions” and “near fatal chimney falls”. This certainly isn’t good news for the contractor involved who has an otherwise exemplary safety record; and neither is it good for the industry as a whole which is once again publicly portrayed as, at best, hit and miss.

As an organisation that relies upon footage from these implosions for its very survival, DemolitionNews.com would hate to see the day when every implosion was conducted “behind closed doors” with a one mile exclusion zone and no cameras. But, by the same token, yesterday’s incident was a mere fraction away from being considerably worse, a problem that could have been avoided.

Let us know what you think using the Comments box below.

AED reviewing situation after stack falls in wrong direction.

The former Ohio Edison Mad River Power Plant’s 85 metre (275-foot) tower came down on Wednesday. But initial reports that the blast knocked it the wrong direction. The tower was supposed to fall to the northeast, but ended up going to the south — knocking down several nearby power lines.

The demolition company overseeing the project, Advanced Explosives Demolition, Inc., is reviewing the demolition to see what happened.

Power is currently out on the west side of Springfield, from Western Avenue westward. Klosterman’s Bakery is currently without power, as well as a Speedway store and traffic lights are not working. Police are on hand directing traffic.

You can read more here.

Authorities warn against public viewing of Canberra bridge this weekend.

A bridge from the Glenloch Interchange near Yarramundi Reach is being demolished with explosives on Saturday. Two bridges were made redundant when the Glenloch Interchange was upgraded as part of the Gungahlin Drive Extension. One of the bridges was destroyed two years ago and the second will be demolished on Saturday.

Roads ACT director Tony Gill says a one kilometre exclusion zone will be set up, and the Black Mountain Nature Reserve will be closed to the public, as well as parts of Weston Park. He says the destruction of the bridge will be a big exercise.

“The logistics of it are fairly significant and obviously there’s the safety to the general public which is a major consideration, hence why we haven’t gone out of our way about advertising the fact that the bridge is being demolished,” he said.

Mr Gill is urging people to stay well away from the area. “It’s not a public spectacle and public safety is a paramount consideration,” he said. “We don’t want people looking at it for their own safety.

“We just have to go back not too far in Canberra’s recent history (to learn) about the consequences of demolition activity”, he said referring to the tragic death of 12-year-old Katie Bender, who was killed by a piece of flying debris during the implosion of the old Canberra Hospital in 1997.

Read more here.

300-room wing of Tropicana Hotel falls in controlled explosion.

Part of the Tropicana Hotel & Casino is now history. The latest phase in the resort’s $180 million makeover went off with a bang Tuesday morning as the ‘300 wing’ tumbled to the ground.

The 2:30 am implosion makes way for a new entrance and parking garage, and several additions including a new race and sports book and easier access to a new restaurant, nightclub, and cafe.

The Tropicana’s owners say they didn’t want the implosion to get a lot of fanfare. Instead, they want to focus on turning the 53-year-old resort into a ‘Generation X’ hot spot.

Exclusive photo of work in progress at Glasgow’s Plean Street contract.

Fresh back from acting as judge, guest speaker and fashion icon at the Demolition Awards, C&D Consultancy‘s John Wodward has headed straight for Scotland or, more specifically, the Plean Street contract in Glasgow.

C&D client Technical Demolition Services (TDS) is using one of the UK’s largest high reach excavators to demolish a tower block that Woodward says will be down in time for Christmas.

Either way, it’s a good excuse to bring you this exclusive photo of the 777 high reach in action.