Demolition: the Art of Renewal

To gain an insight into skills and technology that the modern demolition contractor brings to his craft, you need look no further than the events of September 11, 2001. By early in the afternoon of that fateful day almost 14 months ago, National Association of Demolition Contractors (NADC) members were down at Ground Zero in New York City helping the city’s first responders deal with search and rescue efforts at the site. Likewise, NADC members were involved with the clean-up of the Pentagon site in Virginia.

Using skills honed on a hundred different disaster clean-ups, demolition contractors from the tri-state area began working with New York City officials to begin to clear the debris of the fallen towers in a search for any survivors. Working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, NADC member firms began the task of clearing the debris while at the same time assisting with the gathering of forensic evidence and reclaiming the dead.

As the work progressed and site became more manageable, the real skills of the demolition contractors came into play. Like a well-choreographed ballet, the demolition companies marshaled 40 or 50 large pieces of equipment to attack the massive debris pile. Using a fleet of trucks to move the debris to barge stations up the Hudson for transfer to the Fresh Kills Landfill across the river, the NADC member firms were able to move over 1.8 million tons of debris, including some 250,000 tons of ferrous and 500 tons of non-ferrous metal from the largest chiller plant in the world from the site. All of this was done in a little over four months, with the site being returned to the City of New York ready for rebuild by the end of April of this year.

Similarly at the Pentagon site, NADC members were involved with the initial debris clearance of the decimated wedge of the Defense Department’s headquarters. Given almost a month to complete the demolition portion of the clean-up and rebuild on the damaged section of the Pentagon, the demolition companies involved completed their work in less than two weeks.

As with these two noteworthy projects, demolition contractors bring their entrepreneurial expertise to every job they do. NADC members were among the first firms to arrive on-site at the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City after the tragic explosion there. Similarly, demolition contractors are always among the first responders at other disaster sites. During the Northridge earthquake in California and after the landfall of hurricane Hugo in the Carolinas, demolition contractors were on scene right after the disaster, assisting with search and rescue efforts and beginning to reestablish vital public services.

The demolition industry continues its efforts to deal with the nation’s contaminated waste sites. Demolition contractors have been in the forefront of America’s Superfund clean-up effort, working at such highly visible sites as Times Beach in Missouri and the Edison Historic site in West Orange, NJ.

Demolition contractors are currently working with the clean-up of the nation’s nuclear weapons facilities, with highly specialized work being conducted at the Hanford Reservation in Washington State, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, the Oak Ridge Laboratories in Tennessee, and the Savannah River facility in South Carolina. Similarly, demolition companies are helping the commercial nuclear power industry renovate and upgrade their power-generating facilities across the country.

Recently, President Bush signed a bill that authorized the expenditure of $200 million each year for the next six years to deal with the rehabilitation of some 36,000 sites delisted from the CERCLA National Priority List. These “Brownfields” can be something as small as an abandoned gas station with a leaking underground tank or an industrial facility that once housed an electroplating plant. The remediation of these sites is part of a national strategy to promote the renewal of urban industrial sites that will produce new jobs and revitalize the nation’s inner cities. The clean-up of these “Brownfields” is the work of the nation’s demolition contractors—who have the expertise, people and equipment necessary to decontaminate these sites and prepare them for profitable reuse.

Industrial sites are being cleared in preparation for the development of new, more efficient plants. Blighted urban neighborhoods are removed as part of urban renaissances planned for our major cities. High-rise public housing units that have outlived their usefulness and have become a detriment to their occupants are imploded to make way for better housing for the nations’ poor.

As economies grow, commercial structures are gutted in preparation for redevelopment as modern office space. Massive urban initiatives like the “Big Dig” in Boston, Philadelphia’s Urban Blight Initiative, and the revitalization of New York City’s Times Square are revolutionizing the way people look at our cities.

CST Environmental, Inc., specializing in demolition and environmental services, criss-crossed the country this past year, performing work at major industrial sites in Michigan, Georgia, Texas, California and Ohio.

Last fall, CST completed the removal of a 30,000 bbl tank including associated piping and structures at the largest hazardous materials storage site in the state of Michigan. Work included the removal of the tank, support buildings and equipment, on-site piping, truck and rail facilities and approximately 350 tons of contaminated sand.

As the Michigan project wound down, CST started work at a major paper-pulp facility in the Southeast. This project included the abatement and demolition of a recovery boiler Bahco Air Scrubber Unit. The unit was adjacent to Recovery Boiler #2, contained in a structure 100 ft tall and cantilevered over the Brunswick River. As a protection against any possible contamination of the river, a floating boom was placed in the river on the perimeter of the project limits and maintained on a daily basis.

In April, CST mobilized to a steam electric station in Dallas, TX. The project—to be completed in December 2002—includes the abatement and demolition of five turbine generator units; six 600 gpm boilers and related structures; three freestanding auxiliary boilers; related supporting mechanical equipment; approximately 250,000 sq ft of building; concrete pedestals and slabs up to 5 ft thick; underground utilities; and tunnels.

MRP Site Development, founded in 1992, has tackled some of the largest demolition and site development contracts in the country.

One of the largest projects it has recently undertaken is Boston’s “Big Dig.” This multi-billion dollar effort to completely revolutionize the Boston skyline involved a series of diverse demolition projects including the removal of buildings in the path of Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel and underground work tied to the development of the city’s new traffic system. MRP removed over three miles of the elevated steel roadway structures that cut through downtown Boston. They removed 10 bridges over the roadway and six others that spanned water or railroad crossings. In addition, they demolished a half-mile of 4-in. thick concrete tunnel roof and slab and a 3-ft thick slurry wall as part of their “Big Dig” work.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is moving forward with a massive improvement project at Boston’s Logan International Airport. MRP recently completed the demolition of Terminal A at Logan, one of the largest elements of the state’s airport improvement master plan. MRP demolished the 65,000-sq ft main structure, the exterior departure roadway ramps, a spiraled parking structure and a pedestrian walkway as part of the project.

MRP performed demolition work at the old Boston Garden, home to the Celtics and Bruins. When the venerable home to Bill Russell and Larry Bird came down, MRP dealt with all the challenges of demolishing the arena while not damaging the brand new Fleet Center which was located a mere 14 in. from the Garden.

MRP recently completed the development of a 100+ acre site in Everett, MA, in preparation for a large shopping center. The firm reclaimed the site by moving over a million yards of material to the parcel. It was also responsible for all the sitework, grading, utility work and paving.

Chicago’s Soldier Field is a legendary domain in the world of sports. Originally built in 1924 as a memorial to World War I veterans, it held its first football game that same year on November 22, when Notre Dame defeated hometown Northwestern University, 13-6. Soldier Field’s first boxing event, the Dempsey-Tunney fight was held in 1927, and brought in a gate of over $2.5 million. The first ski jumping event was also held at the stadium, and the all-time largest football crowd was recorded with 123,000 fans. The largest crowd for any event, however, was 260,000 on September 8, 1954 for the religious Marian Year Tribute.

Over the past 23 years, the stadium has undergone many new developments to enhance the space, accommodate fans, increase seating capacity, and improve the playing field.

The interior of the stadium is once again being completely renovated to produce a modern facility loaded with fan and franchise-friendly amenities such as luxury suites, licensed seating opportunities, immense video screens, and new concession stands and restrooms.

Within hours after the Chicago Bears completed their 2001 season, the project was launched with the near-total demolition of the stadium’s existing interior. Demolition work was performed by Brandenburg Industrial Service Company. Their challenge was to complete this project on a very tight schedule without damaging the stadium’s historic exterior.

Once started, Brandenburg worked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The workforce consisted of two crews of 50 to 60 workers on two 12-hour shifts. These two shifts were able to load up to 550 truckloads per 24-hour period.

Brandenburg completed 95% of the demolition contract of the stadium’s interior structure and removed an additional 50,000 cubic yards of soil in just 30 days, which was two weeks ahead of an already aggressive project schedule.

Demolition professionals are continually searching for new and innovative means to make their projects faster, safer and more efficient. In a recent project that called for a major overhaul of a Mississippi River lock, that push for improvement was met through the use of a Cyclone Rock & Concrete Processor. The attachment, from Genesis Equipment & Manufacturing of Superior, WI, has been providing similar results at a host of demolition sites throughout the U.S.

On a yearly basis, Lock and Dam No. 24 in Clarksville, MO, sees thousands of barges pass through its gates, moving more than 35 million tons of goods up and down river. Built in 1940, the facility was sorely in need of repair and, in 2001, it was slated for a $35-million overhaul—a process that includes a good deal of concrete demolition, scaling and refacing.

According to Tim Troyer, project manager for Midwest Foundation Corp., one of two joint venture firms contracted to do the work, “The lock rehab entails a full range of projects including massive concrete work, all new electrical components, new operating machinery, a new observation center and lockmaster’s building, as well as all the concrete site work. The work that calls for concrete removal necessitates the use of everything from diamond handsaws to hydraulic hammers. However, we have also chosen to bring a Genesis Cyclone into the mix, and doing so has proven extremely beneficial.”

The Cyclone Rock and Concrete Processor is an excavator-mounted attachment that uses one hydraulic circuit to provide the rotary motion it utilizes for demolition. Equipped with pin-on carbide-tipped processing teeth, the 35-in. wide drum easily processes virtually any rock or concrete encountered onsite.

“Scaling back and profiling the walls is as important to us as the removal itself,” Troyer says. “In that capacity, the Genesis Cyclone provides a level of control and versatility that we simply can’t get with a hammer. The concrete at Lock No. 24 is extremely hard—about 6,000 psi—and for us, a fairly uniform, flat surface is much more desirable than the uneven one left by the hammers. With the Cyclone and the 30+ ft of reach afforded by the boom, we can simply reach out and process any area we like.”

Cherry Demolition was recently selected to demolish two concrete head frames located outside Rifle, CO. Glen Springs Holdings hired Cherry to provide the expertise to fall the towers, segregate the metals from the concrete, bury the concrete on site and fracture numerous building foundations.

Glens Springs Holdings’ agreement with the Bureau of Land Management called for the protection of the mineshafts. Since the head frames were built directly on top of the shaft, this became somewhat of a challenge.

Additionally, it was determined that the elevator and stay cables needed to be secured and the below-grade portions of the cables needed to remain in place for potential reuse. This required Cherry to engineer supports to hold and protect the cables.

The cables in the production shaft went all the way to the bottom of the 1857-ft deep shaft and the elevator stay cables had 30,000-lb weights on the ends of them. Cherry had to build the supports prior to wrecking the head frames, but the doors in the head frames were not built with this operation in mind.

Using a 120-ton crane, excavators and elaborate pulley systems, Cherry wedged, pulled, pushed and cursed a dozen 40-ft long, 36-in. wide flange beams onto the mineshaft collar. Once the beams were placed over each shaft, special cable locking wedge devices were used to secure the cables. When Cherry cut the cables loose, all of the cable wedges held.

Once the cables were secured, Cherry began preparing to fall the head frames. This work included the removal of all steel from the bottom of the structures, the pre-cutting of select steel members and the securing of the elevator cars.

Cherry was able to bury concrete onsite. The smaller of the two structures was located next to a 100+-ft deep by 35-ft diameter airshaft. The taller structure was too big to fall towards the airshaft, so Cherry dug a trench where the head frame would land.

Once the head frames were in the ground, Cherry used a 120-ton crane, three excavators with various attachments including hammers, and a track loader to segregate the metal from the concrete and to further size the concrete and place it into the trench and airshaft.