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.

Crumbling steeple, collapsed wall and a near-miss mar Canadian church demolition.

Things did not go as planned at the former Methodist Episcopal Church.

The steeple of the church was supposed to have been removed, intact, before any more demolition took place at the 135-year-old brick church. That didn’t happen — it fell to pieces.

Even that procedure, though, was delayed as paperwork had to be retrieved from Belleville before the steeple could be removed.

It was far from intact when it eventually collapsed to the ground over lunch Wednesday after a failed attempt to hook a chain on it.

Moments later, Belleville demolition man Jim Sincalir tore into the back of the church with his high hoe and the back wall and roof then collapsed, even as an employee scrambled to get out of the remains of the tower.

Read more here.

Collapsing wall brings down power lines, snarls traffic.

A demolition project at the former Boyer Printing building in Pennsylvania came to a halt Tuesday afternoon when a portion of the front wall fell onto an electric pole, snapping it in half. No one was injured, said fire Commissioner Duane Trautman.

P.G. Martin Excavators of Lebanon is doing the demolition, which started in earnest on Monday, Trautman said. The building, on the southwest corner of the intersection, will be replaced with landscaping and off-street parking for an existing one-story office building and a 15,000-square-foot Albright Life Center eldercare facility that will open next year.

Tom Cahill watched the demolition from his used-furniture and appliance store on the northeast corner of the intersection. Shortly before 2:45 p.m., Cahill said, it appeared that crews, using a large piece of machinery, were trying to pull the roof toward the back of the three-story building.

But the roof fell forward, crashing into the side of the building and throwing bricks onto the electric line. That caused the pole to crack in half, Cahill said.

Read more here.

Prosecution says man forged his son’s signature on multiple fraudulent documents.

The 60-year-old general manager of a demolition company was sentenced to five years of formal probation and ordered to pay $200,000 in restitution for his guilty plea Tuesday to charges related to a multi-million dollar workers’ compensation and tax fraud scheme.

James Gregory Campbell of Lakewood pleaded guilty to making false or fraudulent statements to reduce insurance premiums, perjury, and making fraudulent statements to obtain or deny compensation, according to court records. Scores of other related charges were dismissed as part of the plea agreement with prosecutors.

Deputy District Attorney Debbie Jackson dismissed all charges against Campbell’s son, Robert Scott Campbell, 27, of Bellevue, Wash., because investigators learned that his name was forged on multiple fraudulent documents.

James Campbell paid $100,000 in restitution today and agreed to pay $1,667 a month until he pays the other half, Jackson said. If he fails to do that he can expect to serve time in prison, the prosecutor added.

It will take the elder Campbell five years to pay the remainder of the restitution.

Read the full story here.

UK company wins major decommissioning and demolition project.

EDP, one of Europe’s major energy operators and the largest in Portugal, is set to begin a major decommissioning and demolition project with the help of UK-based specialist consulting engineers RVA Group.

The project will see a full site clearance of the energy group’s 7-hectare power plant in Barreiro, Portugal. The plant, which operated from 1977 to 2009, was EDP’s largest thermal cogeneration power plant and one of the oldest in the group’s extensive portfolio. The old oil-fired station has already been replaced by a modern CHP power plant on the same site, allowing the group to produce cleaner, more environmentally-friendly energy.

RVA, the UK’s leading expert in large scale decommissioning, decontamination, dismantling and demolition projects has helped EDP prepare a detailed project specification and tender documentation, and will play a key role in the contractor selection programme. Following the appointment of a contractor at the end of November, RVA is available to continue to work with EDP, providing specialist project management support and technical advice as required throughout the programme of works.

The project will include the demolition of several large structures compromising a 1,000m oil and steam pipeline, engine room, boiler, steam turbines, pumping station and two on-site reservoir tanks, each measuring 7,500m3.

Stadium demolished as Brazil builds for 2014

The Fonte Nova stadium was demolished on Sunday as Brazil prepares to host the 2014 World Cup.

Over 700 kilos of explosives were used to demolish the football stadium in the northeastern city of Salvador, where seven people died in 2007 after stands collapsed during a match. The complex had been closed ever since.

A new $330 million stadium is being built in its place, and will have the capacity to hold nearly 51,000 people.

Middletown demolition company owner gets four years for fraud, tax offences

William C. Holley, age 45, of Middletown, was sentenced Thursday afternoon by United States District Court Judge Sue L. Robinson to 48 months of imprisonment and a three-year term of supervised release.

In March, Holley was convicted after a jury trial, along with his co-defendant, Joseph Funk, of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Holley was separately convicted of 12 counts of tax evasion and 3 counts of willful failure to account for and pay over taxes. Funk was separately convicted of nine counts of retirement fund fraud. Fund did not appear for sentencing and is now considered to be a fugitive.

Holley and Funk were the President and Vice President, respectively, of a Wilmington-based demolition company, Holley Enterprises, Incorporated (“HEI”). From 2004 through May 2007, jurors agreed that Holley engaged in a number of fraud schemes designed to retain monies that were legally owed to the United States government, to his employees and to union benefit plans.

Read the full story here.

Voluntary redundancies cut staff numbers at nuclear power station site.

The company leading the demolition of the Dounreay nuclear site is cutting 102 posts this year and planning to shed a further 80 jobs by 2013.

Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) said 93 posts at the Caithness site have been identified so far.

Thirty more jobs are to be cut over 2011-12 and 50 over 2012-13.

DSRL also plans plans to seek a cheaper alternative to a proposed £100m treatment plant and store for most of the complex’s intermediate-level waste.

Read more here.