Undercover demolition man left out in the cold after bringing corrupt officials to book.

Sidney Johnson’s modest home is surrounded by a mountain of junk. He feels most comfortable under a hot Texas sun with a bandana tied around his head using a bulldozer to collect scrap.

Yet the “junk man,” as he jokingly refers to himself, became the most unlikely of spies to come in from the heat and enter the cold, calculating world of the greedy politician.

His undercover work for the FBI over the last five years helped bust a string of public officials across Waller County who previously had evaded other probes, authorities said.

To date, a mayor, justice of the peace, public works director and two aldermen have pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud taxpayers by soliciting kickbacks. Many believe more heads will roll as investigators try to end an apparent systemic culture of corruption that had infected this rural county west of Houston.

“Now I just want my life back,” said Johnson, 47, who said he’s lost nearly everything since taking his stand against corruption.

Speaking publicly for the first time, Johnson said he’s been blackballed by local governments who have canceled contracts and avoided hiring his once-thriving recycling and demolition company. He also faces foreclosure on his main property for $23,882 owed in back taxes, and all his heavy equipment has been repossessed.

In addition, he’s embarrassed that he cannot provide properly for his children or his wife, Judy, who suffers from an autoimmune disorder and requires a caretaker.

Read the full story here.

Experts warn citizens against DIY demolition.

The New Zealand cabinet on Monday made an initial 5 million NZ dollars (3.5 million U.S. dollars) contribution to the mayoral fund set up to help those affected by the earthquake in New Zealand’s South Island.

The welfare fund is to assist people not covered by other agencies such as Work and Income.

Prime Minister John Key said Cabinet will make 94 million NZ dollars from the emergency works budget available immediately so work can start on fixing roads.

He said the 5 million NZ dollars marked just the start of the government’s financial contribution, and the cost of restoring infrastructure will run into hundreds of millions of dollars.

Demolition work has got under way in central Christchurch to remove buildings devastated by Saturday’s 7.1 magnitude earthquake.

Heavy machinery began pulling down condemned buildings to make the city safer earlier on Monday afternoon.

Lines company Orion said people are putting themselves at risk by demolishing quake-damaged houses before they have been completely removed from the power network.

Read more here.

Sioux Falls mayor brings pressure to bear on dilapidated hotel owner.

Sioux Falls mayor Mike Huether is on the verge of delivering on his promise to rid his city of dilapidated buildings by taking over responsibility to demolish the Oaks Hotel.

In June, Oaks Hotel owner David Graham said the demolition of the hotel would start in mid-July and that construction on a new hotel would take about nine months. But as of today, the hotel remains standing.

Huether says he believes Graham had good intentions. “If it doesn’t get done in a more timely fashion, the city has no other choice, we’ll tear it down ourselves and then we’ll bill the owner for that,” says Huether. “But now not to hit the goals and not to meet the expectations and yes to over promise and to underdeliver, it’s disappointing to say the least,” said Huether.

Read more and watch a KDLT video, click here.

demolition-jobs.co.uk will have a new job board, thanks to Humres Recruitment

A few weeks ago, we put out an appeal to assist with the development of a new job board for the demolition-jobs.co.uk website. As regular readers will recall, we were looking for £500 to allow us to develop this important website to allow UK demolition contractors to advertise vacant positions within their company to a willing audience of thousands of known demolition professionals.

Well our pleas have been answered by Humres Recruitment which has generously donated the full amount. Based in London, Humres Recruitment provides expert technical recruitment consulting services for the construction industry. The company offers a contemporary and fresh approach to the recruitment process. They understand that key human capital within demolition are not easy to find and will only deal with a company that they can trust and know. It is through many years of networking and building relationships with candidates high and low that Humres are the number one choice to many key players within the demolition sector today.

Humres has been operating in the demolition sector for seven years but earlier this year, realising the demolition sector is like no other, Humres Managing Director Paul Seth put together a specialist division solely concentrating on the demolition sector. The division is headed up by divisional manager Anthony Robbins and senior consultant Alan Fines. Members of the team are continually trained and pride themselves on their knowledge of the demolition industry.

“We are delighted to welcome Humres Recruitment on board as our business partners in the ongoing development of the demolition-jobs.co.uk website. We simply cannot thank them enough for their generosity,” says demolition-jobs.co.uk founder Mark Anthony. “And we look forward to announcing further updates within the next few weeks when the new-look job board goes live.”

The pick of the speeches from the NFDC’s business meeting in Sardinia.

This time last week, the cream of the UK’s demolition industry gathered in Sardinia for the National Federation of Demolition Contractors’ 2010 Annual Convention.

In addition to enjoying all that the famous Forte Village has to offer, they also met for the Federation’s traditional half yearly business meeting where the likes of Mike Taylor – CEO of the US’ National Demolition Association – and Howard Button – CEO of the NFDC – provided a “state of the nation” address for both sides of the Atlantic.

Although the lighting was hardly conducive to video recording, we have gathered together the pick of the non-sponsor footage for you below:

2010 Convention Presentations from Mark Anthony on Vimeo.

Australian blasters put stranded animal out of its misery.

Question. There is a large humpback whale beached on a sandbank for two weeks and it is clear that the animal is no longer able to help itself and is, as a result, suffering. Do you (a) attempt to tow it into the water? (b) Deploy a marine crane to help free the beast? Or (c) call a team of blasters o put the animal out of its misery using something called a “cranial implosion”.

Well, if you’re an animal-loving Australian, option (c) is apparently the way to go, as evidenced by this story from the Vancouver Sun.

And there was us thinking a cranial implosion was that feeling we get in our head whenever we receive news of a blast gone awry or another excavator winding up in a basement.

Check out what just arrived at Demolition News Towers.

Here at Demolition News, it has long been our belief that we don’t receive enough free stuff. Sure, we have a few baseball caps kicking about the place, one or two excavator models, and maybe a few high visibility jackets which, ironically, we can’t spot right now; but nothing particularly original or unique.

Until today that is. Our post arrived, as usual, and as usual it contained a familiar collection of final demands, letters of complaint, threats of legal action for one slander or another. But there, lurking at the bottom of this unwelcome pile, was an envelope that had clearly started its journey in the US or A.

Setting aside any fear that it might contain a vengeful explosive device from a slighted US contractor, we tore open the package to find what we believe to be a unique item on these shores: A Demo Diva t-shirt.

Thankfully, our editor and founder Mark Anthony has been on (and remains on) a pretty severe (and long overdue) diet of late and that has allowed him to slip unaided into the medium-sized garment to model it for us. Setting aside the slightly smug look on his face, we grudgingly have to admit that the t-shirt does look rather good – Just as well as he assures us that he’s taking it to the EDA Conference in Sweden next week. (And our thanks to Demo Diva Simone Bruni for finally getting him to change his shirt!!)

D-Drill’s Julie White ascends to board of DSA.

Julie White, managing director of Shilton-based diamond drilling and sawing specialists D-Drill, has accepted a position on the board of directors of The Drilling and Sawing Association.

Julie says she feels that she can make a difference in an industry that continues to be male dominated. “It needs new people on the board and younger members who are rare in The Drilling and Sawing Association,” she says. “We need to prove to people that are not members that it is worth their while being part of the organisation.

Joel Vinsant, secretary of The Drilling and Sawing Association, says Julie fully deserves her position on the board. “Julie has been pro-active in the industry for a number of years and fully deserves her place on the board. We want the association to have new blood with people who have fresh ideas to take the association forward with different approaches and with Julie’s involvement we can only go from strength to strength,” he says. “She has been really enthusiastic about encouraging the two-year apprenticeship scheme we started six years ago which is vital to train the next generation in this specialist industry.

“It is important for people coming into this sphere to gain vocational and practical training and D-Drill has had 20 apprentices complete the course which highlights Julie’s commitment to providing her workforce with the best possible skills.”

The shortlist for the 2010 Demolition Awards features a strong Transatlantic field.

Within the past few minutes, the shortlist for the 2010 Demolition Awards has been announced. The contenders are as follows:

Contractor of the Year Award – American DND, Cantillon, Cuddy Group, EDS, Erith Group and General Smontaggi

Contract of the Year Award – Armac, Cuddy Group, Despe SpA, EDS, Lawson Demolition and NASDI

Explosive Demolition Award – AED, American DND/Controlled Demolition Inc, CAEM, Eurovia, Fabio Bruno and TDS

Industrial Demolition Award – City Demolition, Despe SpA, Erith Group, General Smontaggi, Lee Group, Montalbetti and R Baker

Urban Demolition Award – Despe SpA, Erith Group, General Smontaggi, Porr Umweitechnik, S G Loewendick and Schijf Group

Civils Demolition Award – Armac, City Demolition and Despe SpA

Demolition Safety Award – American DND/Controlled Demolition Inc, Cantillon, Despe SpA, Dorton Group, General Smontaggi, Lloyds Construction Services, O’Rourke Wrecking and R Baker & Son

Demolition Training Award – Cuddy Group, Despe SpA, Dorton Group, Erith Group, Maylarch and O’Rourke Wrecking

Environmental & Recycling Award – Cherry Demolition, Despe SpA, General Smontaggi, Interior Removal Specialists Inc and NKR Demolition

Innovation Award: Series – Caterpillar SARL, Komatsu, Liebherr, LST, Powerscreen, Sagro and Volvo Construction Equipment

Innovation Award: Custom – Kocurek/Volvo, Liebherr and Van Vliet

Customer Service/Support Award – Liebherr and Powerscreen

Having recently seen the new Caterpillar/Demlone DEM50 machine in action, we’re going to stick out our necks and predict a win for the equipment giant in the Innovation Award Series category. But we’d love to hear your predictions.

Exclusive new video gets up close and personal with this week’s Celotx plant implosion.

Earlier this week, we brought you some news footage capturing the final minutes of the two smokestacks and a boiler building at the Knight-Celotex Plant in Sunbury.

But now, thanks to John Koehler of Winchester Blasting Services Inc., the team behind the blast, we’re able to bring you some much more detailed footage of the blast that truly captures the synchronised fall of the stacks.

Thanks for the video John.