Health and safety violations continue to plague the “Tombstone at Ground Zero”.

Located, as it is, beside the scene of the US’ worst peace time atrocity, the Deutsche Bank building in Manhattan has been under the media spotlight since that fateful day in 2001. So you would have thought that, with the eyes of the world upon it, the demolition contractors involved in removing this contaminated blot on the Ground Zero landscape would have put safety first, particularly after the death of two firefighters in the building in 2007.

However, as a letter to contractor Bovis Lend Lease on 29 January points out, the building remains the subject of grave safety concerns following a recent and ongoing spate of accidents and safety violations.

In the letter, letter, LMDC President David Emil warned contractor Bovis Lend Lease that its safety record at the site was a “failure” and its management of the job “unacceptable.” Emil ordered Bovis to shake up top staff and overhaul safety operations immediately.

“There has been a failure by senior management at Bovis to properly manage safety issues,” Emil told The New York Daily News. “We have grave concerns about the quality of their work, and we’re expressing that very forcefully to them.”

It is little wonder. Last month alone, the city Buildings Department slapped Bovis or its subcontractors with at least a dozen safety violations, alleging offenses that could endanger the lives of workers and the safety of the public. That’s more infractions in a single month than any time since the seven-alarm fire. Bovis would not address specific violations; it plans to appeal most of them.

To read the full story, please click here. And to see a list of the health and safety infractions, click here. Alternativiely, click here to view a video report.

30-storey, 1515 will be third-tallest US implosion when it goes down on 14 February.

With less than a week to go until the company drops the 1515 condo tower in West Palm Beach, the Palm Beach Post has produced a colourful and insightful feature on the family behind Advanced Explosive Demolition:

The Kelly family travels the country like a posse on a mission to destroy, unhitching their trucks and trailers long enough to blow up buildings and then saddling up and moving on.

Though their matching cowboy hats and shirts caught West Palm Beach’s construction services director by surprise, he knows the Kellys are among the country’s most sought-after demolition experts, fully capable of safely pulling off the Valentine’s Day implosion of the 1515 Tower on the South Flagler Drive waterfront.

It’s a challenge, Eric Kelly concedes, and one that has neighbors on edge. The 30-story, hurricane-damaged condo will be the third-tallest building imploded in the United States when it goes down Feb. 14, according to Kelly.

Read more here.

Jim Caldwell appointed chairman of the UK’s National Demolition Training Group.

As a leading light within NDTG Scotland, Caldwell has been a career-long advocate of demolition training; and his appointment is a just reward for his tireless work in giving the UK demolition sector a competent and carded workforce.

Caldwell takes over at the helm of the NDTG from previous president David Clarke who will stay on as a member of the Group’s management committee.

In addition to chief executive Howard Button and training group manager Sophie Francis, the new committee is as follows:

CHAIRMAN – Jim Caldwell
VICE CHAIRMAN – Richard Comley
SECOND VICE – Terry Quarmby
Co-opted NFDC Member – Richard Dolman
NDTG Scotland Chariman – Craig MacWilliam
Non-NFDC Member – David Clarke
NFDC Current President – Dave Darsey

Demolition of the Giants Stadium is finally underway.

In addition to acting as home to the New York Giants for many years, the Giants Stadium hosted a mass by Pope John Paul II, a concert by U2, and was the venue for the last soccer match ever played by Pele.

But all of that is in the past; and yesterday demolition crews finally got to work with a high reach excavator to take down one of the Big Apple’s most famous landmarks.

Gramercy Group, a Westbury, N.Y.-based demolition company, is performing the more than $10 million demolition project, which will take about four months to complete.

You can read more here or view the video below.

Exclusive video interview with AR Demolition’s Richard Dolman on “All-Risk” contracts.

There can be little doubt that the demolition landscape has been altered by the economic crisis; clients and main contractors, themselves impacted by the collapse of the banking sector, demanding keener prices and faster turnarounds.

However, according to AR Demolition director Richard Dolman, one of the key issues thrown up by this changing landscape is the use of “all-risk” contracts in which demolition contractors are expected to burden the risk should their work uncover asbestos or other potentially harmful (and, therefore, costly) substances or problems.

In this exclusive interview, Dolman explains his concerns. And despite the poor quality of the recording (it was captured on an iPhone and has not been edited) he makes some fascinating points:

Two recent announcements suggest “check your facts” policy has gone way of the Dodo.

Call me old-fashioned and call me stuck in the past; but I come from an era in which journalistic facts were checked, double-checked and then checked by a fire-breathing editor who could disable a typewriter (yes, I really am THAT old) at a hundred paces with nothing more than a beer-addled stare.

Sadly, such policies seem to have gone the way of the wrecking ball and crawler crane; consigned to the waste basket of history even though, in many instances, they remain the best solution to a particular job.

And I am not talking about bloggers or so-called citizen journalists here; those people armed with a basic understanding of the English language, a rudimentary grasp of the Internet and blessed with perhaps a little too much time on their hands.

No. The reason for my Friday morning ire is that, during the past 24 hours, I have read two separate announcements relating to high reach excavators in which – quite clearly – no-one has even thought to check their facts.

The first came from a PR company (and yes, I realise that their job is to stretch the bounds of truth to make their offerings more appealing to miserable curmudgeons like me) announcing the fact that a UK demolition company had taken delivery of a Komatsu high reach machine equipped with an “unsurpassed 45 metre boom”.

Hmm, let me think about that. Unless the rules of mathematics have been changed along with the rules of journalism, I think 50 metres still surpasses 45 metres, as does 60 metres and 65 metres. So, this unsurpassed boom is, in fact, surpassed by probably half a dozen machines currently at work on UK demolition sites.

Now I was willing to let that go. I was busy, I was hyped up on coffee and I was feeling generous, even though the errors contained within the press release saw it consigned to File 13, a small basket stowed beneath my desk.

But then along comes this press release from Leeds City Council with the news that a local tower block will be demolished using a high reach machine, “one of only two in the country that can reach to a height of nearly 50 metres”.

For the record, the highest machine currently in the UK has a reach of 65 metres (unless Kocurek have something else up their sleeve); and while 45 metres is hardly a “tiddler”, it most certainly IS surpassed.

So if you are in the PR business and you’re planning to send us a press release, please do us and yourselves a favour: check your facts…because if you don’t, we sure as hell will.

Exclusive footage from today’s LIVE broadcast from the NDTG AGM.

As promised yesterday, we finally managed our first ever live streaming broadcast, from the National Demolition Training Group annual general meeting. The broadcast was not without its hitches but we were delighted that a number of people took the opportunity to tune in.

Thanks to the vagaries of technology, not all of the footage shot today is available, but here’s a flavour featuring incoming NDTG chairman Jim Caldwell, together with training group manager Sophie Francis and NDTG chief executive Howard Button:

Questions over bidding process bring major contract to a standstill.

Cedar Rapids City Council last night set aside a decision to accept a local contractor’s $10 million bid to bring down most of the flood-and-fire damaged old Sinclair meatpacking plant.

The decision to postpone the award of a demolition contract came over questions related to the city’s bidding process as attorneys for two of the 11 competing firms addressed the council last night, one of whom already has filed a lawsuit against the city.

The council, though, did take on the related matter of the 100-year-old Sinclair smokestack, giving a strong endorsement to Maura Pilcher, chairwoman of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission, to see if she and others can quickly find funds to study, stabilize and, ultimately, restore the smokestack.

However, council member Pat Shey noted that the clock is ticking on the smokestack, which city, state and federal officials have said is in danger of collapse and is a threat to demolition crews working nearby. Shey said the city needed to see some action from Pilcher before demolition crews at the Sinclair plant got to the spot near the smokestack in the next couple of months.

Read more here.

Financial penalty for contractor that violated asbestos regulations.

An Albuquerque contractor has agreed to pay a $225,000 penalty under a consent judgment for asbestos air quality violations that occurred during the 2007 demolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs school dormitory in Holbrook, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and Arizona Attorney General’s Office announced last week.

In May 2007, a subcontractor for Gerald A. Martin Ltd., a New Mexico corporation, began demolition of the dormitory after the building had reportedly gone through an abatement process for the presence of asbestos and a quantity had been removed.

After demolition of the facilities had begun, the subcontractor discovered within the debris materials that he believed contained asbestos. At that time the demolition came to a standstill as the Holbrook Fire Department was called in to wet down the debris to ensure that it would not become airborne, and thus become a potential hazard. As a precautionary measure, Holbrook High School canceled a football game and the area surrounding the demolition was cordoned off.

Read the full story here.

Two cleared but demolition contractor still to stand trial.

Two company directors have been cleared of all charges over the death of a demolition worker at a tower block near Paddington Station.

Polish labourer Rafal Prezestrzelski was crushed by falling masonry at the 12-storey Telstar House project on July 25, 2005.

Nicholas Ward, manager of contractor John F Hunt Demolition, based at London Road, Grays, and Oscar Menezes, director of Menezes Structural Consultants, were due to stand trial on health and safety charges this month.

But at the Old Bailey last Wednesday the prosecution offered no evidence against both men and Menezes Structural Consultants.

Last year gross negligence manslaughter charges were dismissed against Bayoak Demo Ltd, Barry Eaton, Nicholas Ward, Oscar Menezes and Menezes Structural Consultants Ltd following legal argument.

Read more here.