Another giant building begins to fall in Tennessee.

Demolition work has begun on another giant building at a former uranium enrichment plant in West Oak Ridge. This time, it’s the 13 hectare (32-acre) K-33 Building on the western side of the former K-25 Site.

As of early January, about 65 percent of K-33’s siding had been removed and roughly eight percent of the two-story building had been demolished, U.S. Department of Energy spokesman Michael Koentop said. The project began last September with workers clearing an 24 metre (80-foot) perimeter around the 12,0,000 square metre (1.3 million-square-foot) building. “We’re on schedule,” Koentop said. “It’s a real success story for us.”

Demolition work is funded by federal economic stimulus funding – the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – and could be completed by 1 March 2012. Debris will be hauled to DOE’s Environmental Management Waste Management Facility on Bear Creek Road.

DOE announced in April 2010 that it had awarded a $51 million contract for the demolition work to LATA-Sharp Remediation Services LLC of Westerville, Ohio. The project employs 260 workers.

Read more here.

Failure to report asbestos was “pretty much a paperwork issue…”

A Middleboro demolition company has been fined for failing to report asbestos found in underground ductwork on a site in Worcester.

Costello Dismantling Company has been fined a combined $45,000 along with J.H. Lynch & Sons, Inc., of Cumberland, R.I., according to a statement Monday from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

The fine was assessed because the contractors did not report asbestos that was found in underground ductwork at a site in Worcester where a Wal-Mart, Olive Garden and other retail stores were built in 2008, according to DEP spokesman Edmund J. Coletta Jr.

John Hastings, Costello’s chief financial officer, said the matter was “pretty much a paperwork issue.”

Read more here.

DemolitionNews is up against the industry big guns in industry awards.

We are delighted to reveal that DemolitionNews.com has been nominated for a coveted industry award.

The Be2Awards 2011 best ‘old media/new media’ category has been created as a reflection of the changing nature of the publishing world. Traditional print titles have had to adapt their activities to cater for the explosion in internet use, and this award will go to the publisher or publication that has best adapted to the opportunities delivered by social media.

We are up against some seriously stiff competition including Construction News and our friends over at ConstructionEnquirer and we know we’re outgunned. Construction News, for example, is a multi-million pound operation employing dozens of editorial and advertising personnel to produce content for a readership that runs into tens of thousands. DemolitionNews.com, meanwhile, is effectively run by one person and has a considerably smaller, highly specialised readership.

“We know we’re hopelessly outgunned. We serve an industry that comprises just a few thousand individuals while Construction News and ConstructionEnquirer have tens and even hundreds of thousands of loyal followers,” says DemolitionNews.com founder and editor Mark Anthony. “To even be nominated in the same category as media organisations of that size and stature is a huge honour.”

To add your vote, please click here and scroll to the foot of the page.

Amidst industry speculation, facts are emerging about possible causes of accident.

Although accident investigators are continuing to piece together the circumstances surrounding the tragic accident that killed STC BV’s Ad Swanink, some initial facts are beginning to emerge.

It appears that a long-running dispute between manufacturer/modifier Rusch and the machine’s owner Euro Demolition BV led to the owner collecting the machine from Rusch more than a week ago to have further machine modifications and testing undertaken by STC BV. Quite what those additional modifications involved is not known at this time.

However, indications suggest that prior to the accident, the machine’s safety system had been disconnected, none of the boom shafts had been safeguarded, and the track body –which should be secured by 24 bolts – had been secured in just the four corners and the bolts in these areas sheared off during the accident.

Also sheared off were the outriggers that support the ballast block although, according to initial findings, it appears that this was a straight line failure with no sign of previous wear or damage between the mainframe and the ballast block. It is this three-part ballast block that fell from the machine intact, killing Ad Swanink.

It is, of course, far too early to speculate about what operation the machine was performing when this catastrophic and tragic failure occurred. But our sources suggest that the disconnection of the safety system and too few bolts securing the track body combined with the boom being raised too abruptly MAY have triggered the failure.

Power plant tender process begins again as city throws out previous bids.

The City of Austin, which last week was on the verge of hiring a construction company to dismantle the Holly Power Plant, has decided to throw out all bids for the project amid questions about why a relatively expensive proposal became the city’s preferred choice.

The contract to dismantle the plant will be rebid, and the city hopes to select a company by May 26 , according to a Thursday afternoon memo from Assistant City Manager Rudy Garza to the City Council. The memo also states that in weighing criteria such as the experience and expertise of the various companies, “there should have been greater emphasis on … the total cost of the project.”

But, the memo adds, “we have confirmed that the process (of ranking the bids) was in fact fair and equitable.”

The delay is the latest chapter in a long-running saga surrounding the now-decommissioned Holly Power Plant, an emblem to many East Austin residents of a city willing to trample the environment in minority communities. The hulking plant has been shuttered since 2007, and now residents must wait longer for their unwanted neighbor to disappear from the skyline.

The city staff did not grade the dismantling proposals based entirely on cost, as it does on most projects. Instead, the city, using a method it sometimes employs for complex projects, crafted a scoring matrix that also took into account factors such as a firm’s experience with Austin issues, its local business presence and its likelihood of finishing on time and on budget. City officials said the dismantling of a power plant in the middle of a residential neighborhood is complicated enough that other factors needed to be considered.

When all those factors were taken into account, TRC Environmental Corp. narrowly edged out Dixie Demolition . On a 115-point scale, the bids were separated by 0.64 of a point .

Dixie’s bid was $18.8 million . TRC Environmental’s bid was $6.1 million more. TRC Environmental’s higher score was based primarily on what the city staff believed was the company’s superiority in seven of the other categories measured.

Read more here.

Onlooker gets too close but escapes unharmed.

Bell & Associates Construction blasted out the remaining concrete columns and the roadway support beams on the Red River Bridge in a tremendous explosion on Wednesday night. The explosion took place at 10:14:05pm during which time traffic on Wilma Rudolph Blvd was completely shutdown.

The process began by cutting almost completely through the massive steel support beams, then placing shaped cutting charges to finish the job. The support columns had been pre-drilled to allow explosive charges to be placed inside. Once that was complete, all equipment located on or near the bridge had to be removed. Then after a final safety check and a series of long blasts on the horn, it was time for the blast.

As the detonation was triggered, fire could be seen racing through the det cord at 7,000-8,000 meters per second. The shaped charges kicked off first slicing through the support steel, then the bursting charges in the support columns went off instantly pulverizing them.

Media had been ordered out of the area directly adjacent to the bridge by the state fire marshal for safety purposes, but an intern from APSU – who had clearly called by the Stupid Store and bought its entire stock – violated the safety zone, clambering down a cliff side unobserved to the water level a short distance from the bridge to record video, and as a result was pelted by flying debris. This could have easily been a fatal choice as some of the flying chunks were quite large. Luckily, he was uninjured.

Read more here or view the video below:

“Don’t ask why we’re so expensive; ask why our competitors are so cheap…”

The leading competitor for the Holly Street Power Plant demolition contract has broken its silence in the wake of City Council’s decision last week to delay an approval vote to allow more time to study the differences in cost and qualifications between the top two firms vying for the project. Council is slated to take a fresh look at the matter on Jan. 27.

TRC Environmental Corp. is city staff’s preferred candidate to disassemble the massive East Austin power plant. But the company’s $24.9 million bid – the second-highest price among six submitted proposals – has provided sufficient ammo for two competitors to question the decision.

TRC project manager Mike Holder prefers to frame the question in reverse: “Why is our competition priced so low?” He says his company’s bid price is more realistic because it will translate, in the long run, to fewer change orders – the requests that contractors must submit when they need additional funds to complete particular projects.

Nevertheless, charges of fiscal imprudence on contractual matters tend to make council members squirm, particularly in an election season with three incumbents up for re-election. Some insiders suggest that the Holly item was postponed at the eleventh hour, when the vote appeared to be leaning away from TRC and in favor of the staff’s second-ranked firm, Dixie Demolition, whose bid is $6.1 million cheaper. That’s when TRC decided to speak up.

Read more here.

Housing association seeks bidders for largest UK demolition job of the year.

Leading UK construction news portal Construction Enquirer is reporting that Glasgow Housing Association is searching for a demolition contractor to tear down one of the most notorious estates in the city.

The £8 million job will see the demolition of six, 31-storey blocks, once reckoned to be the tallest flats in Europe. The demolition of around 720 flats is expected to be the biggest demolition job to go out to bid this year and presents a huge challenge because of high levels of asbestos both inside and outside the buildings.

The successful contractor will be promised a steady work stream with the complex task expected to take around four years to complete.

The deal is part of a £60 million transformation of the area that was started by Safedem, the former Demolition Contractor of the Year.

Read the full story here.

The tragic death of Ad Swanink casts a long shadow over the high reach demolition sector.

Any demolition-related death is tragic. But – regardless of the findings of the investigation currently taking place in the Netherlands – the accident that killed STC BV’s Ad Swanink has cast a shadow over the high reach demolition excavator business. And it may be some time before the industry regains its balance having been so seriously rocked by this incident.

The cause of the accident remains shrouded in mystery. Initial reports suggested that the rear counterweight of the Rusch TUHD90 machine, the world’s largest high reach demolition excavator, became detached, crushing Swanink. Later reports have suggested that the machine’s massive undercarriage collapsed, dislodging the counterweight. The investigation may take weeks; the impact upon the high reach demolition sector may last considerably longer.

The passing of Swanink is a blow to the industry in itself. Although his company did not seek the limelight to quite the same degree as fellow Dutchmen Rusch, STC was regarded as one of the sector’s true pioneers; and Swanink – like Ruud Schreijer, his opposite number at Rusch – was the driving force behind the company’s innovation.

Swanink’s untimely and tragic death is a loss, and our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues at this time.

But our fear is that something else may have died along with Swanink; a gung-ho, pioneering spirit that has taken high reach excavators from 25 metre reach novelty to 50 metre mainstay machine in a decade.

Every industry, indeed every aspect of human endeavour, needs its innovators; individuals that see an envelope as something to push. And the team at Rusch were this industry’s self-appointed envelope pushers in chief.

While UK-based Kocurek has achieved global acclaim and market leadership with incremental size increases taking a crescent at a time, Rusch shot for the whole of the moon.

In the two years since it rolled out of Rusch’s workshops, the TUHD90 machine has earned plaudits, collected awards and attracted media coverage like no machine before it. Freakishly large, the Frankenstein’s monster born of a Caterpillar mining excavator became a demolition icon. And although it scarcely turned a track in anger, it represented the very pinnacle of high reach evolution; the cutting edge of engineering exploration.

Was it an evolution too far? Possibly; certainly there have been question marks over the machine’s potential utilisation levels virtually since it emerged blinking into the Dutch sunlight. And the fact that Rusch’s rivals have apparently set an unwritten 65 metre upper development limit is, perhaps, telling in itself.

But the thought that this accident might jeopardise or even halt progress in the high reach sector – one of the construction industry’s last true bastions of innovation – is almost as tragic as Swanink’s passing.

And as a noted innovator himself, it is not what Ad Swanink would have wanted.

Industry loses another character as company founder passes away.

The UK demolition industry was dealt another blow last Thursday with the passing of Joe Romani, founder of Demolition Services Leeds. He was just 61 years old and had been ill for some time.

We didn’t know Joe personally but judging by the comments we have received from those that did know him (he was a bit of a lad, seems to be a universally-held belief), the industry has lost one of its last few characters and will be the poorer for his passing.

Our thoughts are with Joe’s family, friends and colleagues at this time.