With a dozen fatalities in the last 12 years in the U.S. related to power plant demolitions, the industry is issuing a call for better safety practices.
Coal-fired power plants are highly sought-after projects for many demolition contractors thanks to the number of facilities getting put up for bid and their propensity to pay well due to the scope of work involved.
The flip side of the coin is that professionals largely consider power plant demolition to be the most dangerous job in the industry right now.
Over the last 12 years, 12 demolition contractors in the U.S., and five more in the U.K., have died as a result of accidents at power plants. Perhaps most alarmingly, 13 of these fatalities have occurred in the last five years, which highlights the reality that the problem is getting worse, not better.
With reports of power plant fatalities continuing to be all-too common in the news, the industry is coming together to identify the common causes of these incidents and develop guidelines for safer operation.
Joe Vendetti is the senior vice president of industrial services at Integrated Demolition and Remediation Inc. Vendetti has more than 30 years of experience successfully demolishing industrial plants around the globe, including 48 power plants featuring more than 200 boilers.
Generally speaking, he says issues at power plants occur because of one or more of the following reasons: complacency, lack of proper engineering evaluation, failure to adopt management of change (MOC) practices, lack of understanding from the contractor and/or owner of the dangers of hung boilers, and customers that allow those with substandard safety records to bid on projects.
One thing Vendetti notes is that contractor experience isn’t necessarily a reliable indicator of safety.
“There isn’t one particular thing we as an industry can point to [in terms of who is most likely to have an accident]. There have been very experienced contractors in hung boiler demolition that have had bad accidents and then some with zero experience,” Vendetti says.
Vendetti says rather than the experience of the contractor, the complexity of dealing with hung boilers and the different engineering requirements for each job pose the biggest hurdles for most contractors.
“I think it comes down to being engaged with engineers, but it’s also often a complacency thing. As a contractor, you may think you’ve made a certain type of cut so many times or you worked on the same configuration of columns so many times without incident, but without having a checklist and going through a third-party engineer to show them your plan, look at the steel strength and things like that, you’re putting yourself at risk,” he says.
Vendetti says because the drawings of these facilities date back decades, it is difficult to rely on their accuracy. Also, because different plants are composed of different steel classifications, contractors need to be aware of the potential ramifications of each cut.
“Different types of steel can vary significantly in strength, and a cut that you may make on one piece of steel may not cause it to fail, where it would on another piece of steel that’s not as strong,” Vendetti says. “And if you don’t pay that type of attention to detail on every single cut, you’re going to have an accident.”
Likewise, Vendetti says the engineering of hung boilers can lead to complexity on the job. Since these boilers are designed to redistribute their loads, when a contractor cuts through one column connecting a boiler, the structure can shift its load to the next strongest point.
By having a fluid engineering survey, Vendetti says you can better understand potential hazards as work progresses.
“From a 50,000-foot view, the hung boilers are not like most structures,” he says. “Plus, most of these structures have been modified or added onto over the years. To quote Ahmed Khalil, director of engineering, at Applied Science International (ASI), ‘Because these boilers are hung from the top, the 3D load path is quite complex and the load redistribution when making cuts is, in many cases, counterintuitive.’ This is a key statement. Unlike a traditional 18-story building, for example, where loads are most always carried equally, columns under boilers are designed for shifting weight above.”
Vendetti says that some contractors bid on projects erroneously thinking that an ultra-high-reach excavator can be used to do all the cutting of boiler beam structures or that they can use an implosion specialist to do all the heavy lifting for bringing down the structure. The reality is that in both cases, contractors need to do much of this work by hand.
Of course, the need to manually do this work increases the risk, which is why workers and supervisors need to be obsessive about identifying and discussing warning signs before, during and after each phase of a job.
Vendetti says contractors should utilize subject matter experts when writing work plans and review these plans with each team member involved throughout the project.
“Your team needs to know what to expect (pops, noises, bird mouths, etc.) when you start cutting into a structure so if they see something different than what is supposed to occur, they can stop work. You also need to plan every cut, which means engaging a structural engineer to analyze your plan before you start thinking about cutting into a column, beam, etc. Whether you plan on cutting and cabling a structure over or using explosives, there are many cuts that have to be made first,” Vendetti says.
Vendetti says there should be one safety officer or safety tech for every 25 workers to properly oversee a project. He also advocates for making at least one observation for every 75 man-hours worked. He says supervisors should be making observations of both good and bad behavior and be willing to stop work in either case to highlight what was done right and what was done incorrectly.
“Contractors should be vigilant in going over lessons learned. … Showing your team the mistakes that have occurred is just as important as the successes. If you have multiple cameras, drones or even simulations—these are important tools,” Vendetti says.
This issue of demolition safety is something that Tim Barker, D4 program manager at AECOM, has made a career of.
At the beginning of his career, while working as a project manager for one of the country’s biggest contractors, one of the workers on his team died on the job due to an accident that could have been prevented. This coworker, like Barker at the time, was expecting the arrival of his first child.
Motivated by this loss, Barker spent the next two decades of his career embarking on a crusade to champion safety in demolition, which is embodied through his adherence to a risk mitigation strategy that emphasizes identifying, assessing and mitigating risks.
Barker says, “Individuals, companies and the industry at large should be willing to look inward to identify common risks, past failures and sources of safety-related shortcomings just as I had to after my first—and I pray last—on-the-job fatality nearly 30 years ago.
“Talking frankly about our train wrecks—the things we are very uncomfortable to bring up or that are sometimes the elephants in the room—in order to find solutions, is my first crucial point in clearly identifying all issues that need to be addressed in power plant demolition,” he says.
Barker says that while it is human nature to want to focus on success, contractors should also identify painful lessons learned such as through near misses or accidents to avoid the same mistakes in the future.
“One of the first questions I would ask someone looking for solutions [after dealing with a failure on the job] is, ‘Have you done a postmortem to thoroughly dissect the death of your plan, program, business, big idea or failed demolition approach?’” he says. “This admission to ourselves of our part in a failure or problem, albeit small or large, is a crucial step in this whole process before we can move on to safely succeed [in the future].”
Barker advocates that each member of an organization be willing to take an inward look at what the team could have done better, or steps the team might have taken that could have helped prevent a specific issue. While this may seem obvious, Barker notes he continues to see himself, his own teams, contractors, owners and their representatives fail to learn from previous mistakes made during power plant demolition. In order to address this, Barker relies heavily upon lessons learned.
“Notably, some of the larger demolition contractors in the industry have made the same fatal mistake twice using a particular high-risk, low-cost approach, and they continue to defend it pointing to the structural engineer plan review, and worse, they use it again,” he says.
Barker says that for those who insist on utilizing high-risk, low-cost demolition methods to be competitive, it’s a matter of “when, not if,” a safety incident will occur.
Barker says assessing risk involves looking for common denominators among incidents. For example, he says if you look at the 13 fatalities that have occurred demolishing power plants over the last five years in both the U.S. and U.K., and the six fatalities that occurred on one particular industrial project in Philadelphia seven years ago, more than half of these demolition projects were for developers, whereas only a few percent of all demolition projects in the industry are performed for developers.
Barker says that after talking with contractors about this phenomenon, he’s heard similar sentiments regarding the reasons.
“The No. 1 complaint I heard was working for developers, the contract awards are primarily based on price and schedule, not safety and experience,” Barker says. “These comments were from some of the best-in-class demolition contractors who don’t own private jets, and they are more often struggling to find work as they balance the pressure to be competitive.”
He says that giving into the pressure to utilize lower cost, higher risk demolition methods can cost contractors big, both in the potential loss of life of a worker, but also in lawsuits and insurance costs that ensue.
After identifying and assessing potential risks, contractors can work to formulate a plan that mitigates these risks. Knowing who to turn to for advice can be instrumental in helping mitigate safety-related issues, Barker says.
“I know who to go to for advice in their areas of expertise, which is my advice to demolition contractors. If I have a specific structural integrity question, I go to one of my senior structural engineers and I point them to the specific issue. If it’s a remediation challenge, I reach out to one of our many environmental scientists or PG’s. If it’s a tax issue, I go to my CPA, and you get the point,” he says. “However, if it is a big issue, I go to someone who has a tremendous amount of unbiased experience and success in the area where I’m seeking my solution. This is not the specialist we go to for technical issues. These are the big issues—how to safely manage a huge and/or high-risk demolition project or program. The life and death issues where you need good advice based on proven experience.”
Barker cautions that, often, “you get what you pay for” when selecting a contractor and when soliciting advice from fellow demolition professionals, and that even top contractors who have had plans reviewed and approved by structural engineers have had fatalities taking down power plants and other structures.
The impetus to seek qualified professionals shouldn’t just be limited to contractors, however. Barker says owners should consult with demolition experts with a background in power plant work when bidding the job to know what the acceptable parameters for the job are that prioritize safe operations.
“What does it take to prevent costly change orders and to develop safe demolition performance-based specifications that define the scope?” Barker asks. “The answer is you need someone that has a lot of demolition-specific safety experience, with a proven approach to mitigate commercial and technical risk, and not just someone who has a lot of initials behind their name.”
He says that regulators and plaintiffs’ attorneys have successfully gone after owners for lack of adequate vetting and oversight relative to demolition work, and these owners have had to pay millions of dollars and suffer a tarnished reputation as a result.
Before taking someone else’s safety-related advice, however, Barker says one must be willing to do their homework on the party and organizations in question.
“In all cases, whether it’s with subject matter experts or contractors, you must trust and verify their experience, qualifications and background before you ever solely rely on their advice. I do the same thing for contractors and sub-consultants on each job even though I use many of them all the time, because the people change, and they are always the most important asset in every organization,” he says.
While there are differing opinions on exactly what the solutions are, nearly all leaders in the demolition industry champion the need for individuals, contractors, owners, engineers and utilities to take responsibility for power plant demolition safety. They also underscore the need for industry-wide standards and certifications.
The National Demolition Association (NDA), heeding the call of its members, told Construction & Demolition Recycling it is in the process of developing the industry’s first certification. As part of developing this certification, the association says increasing safety in the field will be a focal point.
“We’ve seen this big shift now to where you have a utility handling these projects with massive risk management components in-house, and they’re selling off these properties, and unfortunately, I think sometimes dollars play a big role,” Christopher Godek, owner of New England Yankee Construction and president of NDA, says. “And maybe some questions aren’t being asked in the beginning or the preplanning phases of the project that should be asked. One of the big things at the NDA that we’re really pushing for is the certification for our membership and outreach to customers, owners and developers so that they understand who the people are that should be involved in these projects based on their knowledge and understanding of these projects.”
Barker says he presented the idea of a demolition certification when he was on the NDA board, and now he believes the industry has developed the body of knowledge to successfully do it.
Barker was a contributor to the development of NDA’s 40-hour Foundations of Demolition Project Management course. In this course, lessons learned are shared in a “no name, no blame approach” where there is no reference to a past project by name, individual, contractor, architectural/engineering firm or client. Barker says that this approach predicated on insights, not incrimination, is essential for the future development of power plant certification.
To help develop a comprehensive course that champions educational best practices and no-blame learning, NDA has put together a certification board consisting of owners, general contractors and NDA members to determine the potential curriculum. The goal is to launch the course in spring 2022. In addition to the certification course, NDA announced it has agreed to an eminent alliance with OSHA that will include annual training for compliance assistance safety officers as well as an agreement for these safety officers to be made available as resources for NDA members.
NDA Executive Director Jeff Lambert notes that the NDA will also be composing a guidance document of best practices for large industrial demolition projects, including power plants. This will be made available as a reference for all industry partners. He says the association also plans to convene with engineers, general contractors and other stakeholders as part of its quarterly leadership meetings going forward to discuss lessons learned regarding structural integrity issues and other power plant-related demolition findings.
“We think certification is one answer to help bring about safety in power plant demolition, but we want to champion a comprehensive strategy incorporating everyone involved in these projects,” Godek says. “We think a rising tide will lift all boats—it will help contractors stay safe, but it will also help the owners and the general contractors have a metric to say, ‘Here’s the industry standard.’”
This article originally appeared in the March/April issue of Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine. The author is the editor of Construction & Demolition Recycling magazine and can be reached at aredling@gie.net.
Montana-based scrap firm partners with Well Done Foundation to plug orphaned oil wells.
Great Falls, Montana-based Pacific Steel & Recycling remains part of a partnership with the not-for-profit Well Done Foundation (WDF) to plug orphaned oil wells in a campaign tied into Earth Day events in 2020 and 2021.
For 2021, the partners have announced “Plug 21” as the name of a campaign to plug 30 orphaned oil wells in Montana throughout this year, according to WDF founder and Chairman Curtis Shuck.
The Plug 21 initiative will kick-off on Earth Day (April 22) and will Include events tied to the campaign taking place throughout the day in Shelby, Montana.
WDF calls the Plug 21 initiative the largest plugging and reclamation project WDF has taken on in its crusade to address the hazard of orphaned wells “one well at a time.” Pacific Steel & Recycling has committed to funding the plugging of a well called Anderson #1, described by WDF as the oldest orphaned oil well in Toole County, Montana.
“We will plug the Anderson #1 well on Earth Day, thanks to the generous funding provided by Pacific Steel & Recycling,” says Shuck. “Pacific has reclaimed and recycled more than 21 tons of scrap metal from WDF sites in Toole County and was the first to purchase Well Done Climate Benefit Units (carbon offsets). The company continues to be an amazing project partner and sustainable industry leader.”
Kirby Farner, Pacific Steel’s health, safety, environmental and transportation director, remarks, “Pacific is pleased to participate in sponsoring Anderson #1, which was first drilled in 1924. This effort is good for the environment, Well Done, Pacific and the community at large.”
WDF also has recruited Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based Radicle into a carbon-offset partnership that will help finance and complete the plugging of the 30 orphaned wells, while creating a template to expand the WDF model to states such as Kansas, Texas, Colorado, California, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia, says WDF.
The Well Done process is described by WDF as involving several steps. First, WDF identifies a high-emitting orphaned and abandoned oil or gas well and qualifies it through a measurement and monitoring regimen, bonds it with the regulatory body and then launches a campaign to raise funds to plug the well and restore the impacted surface areas.
Working closely with the surface landowners, WDF says it develops a “plugging plan” and obtains a permit from the state for the project.
Next, it identifies and designates an “adoptive family” for the orphaned and abandoned well (either a corporate or individual benefactor), selects a team for the downhole and surface work and executes the project to completion.
Those interested in finding out more about how to purchase carbon offsets through the Well Done Foundation-Radicle partnership can go to this web page.
Victor Sandy, executive with scrap-focused credit advisory firm, says monitoring creditworthiness should be systematically managed.
The first half of March 2021 has witnessed the downfall of a Europe-based financing firm tied to a significant player in the global metals industry and a bankruptcy filing by a plastic scrap consumer with growing capacity in the United States.
The receivership status of Greensill Capital and Greensill Bank in Europe has raised questions about the financial footing of the United Kingdom-based GFG Alliance. That conglomerate has three portfolio companies that produce steel and aluminum, with one of the three—Liberty Steel—operating a ferrous scrap-consuming electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mill in Illinois.
Victor Sandy, president of Bingham Farms, Michigan-based ProfitGuard LLC and its affiliated company, Global Commercial Credit, says there is not yet “much clarity” on if or how GFG Alliance’s connection to Greensill will affect its U.S. steelmaking operations.
In the plastic recycling sector, Los Angeles-based CarbonLite Holdings LLC, which reprocesses scrap polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles into new bottle material, announced in early March it had filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
In its limited statements about potential financing difficulties, GFG Alliance has pointed to “disruption caused by” the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions. Likewise, CarbonLite Recycling CEO Leon Farahnik has cited pressures directly related to the pandemic, including temporary production slowdowns caused by employee illness and the low price of virgin plastic relative to recycled PET (rPET), as reasons for its financial setback.
With COVID-19 having caused a full calendar year of volume and pricing volatility, Recycling Today has asked Sandy about the current credit landscape and how recyclers can take measures to prevent being a materials supplier left in the lurch by a bankruptcy filing.
Victor Sandy (VS): To stay ahead of a potentially significant credit risk event, scrap suppliers should always have current credit files on all their accounts. Too often we see clients who are not monitoring an account closely enough because they have a good/long relationship or have always been paid on time (classic complacency).
The credit risk of each account should influence how often the credit file is updated and then reassessed –lower risk accounts can go longer between updates (every six to 12 months), while higher risk customers should be updated more frequently (every one to three months). An example of a current credit file would include financials, bank/liquidity data, trade references and customer contact information.
Then, when the significant credit risk event happens, we would recommend reviewing your credit file (get updates if needed) and speak with the customer to get additional information on the event, which can then help ensure the right decision is made once all the information is reviewed. By proactively monitoring your customers, you’ll be able to uncover significant risk items well in advance.
If a developing risk is found that raises the company’s default probability, scrap suppliers can take the following steps. You can start working down your current exposure to the company by placing them on credit hold until your previous invoices are paid. This helps keep your exposure levels to a minimum. If you’re on the sidelines and not currently selling to the company, stay put until further clarity is provided or the company’s risk profile improves. Additionally, credit insurance is a proactive financial risk management tool designed to protect your accounts receivable. Having a policy in place will mitigate any unexpected risk.
VS: Trade credit insurance is often used as a borrowing enhancement to provide protection against insolvency or past due default in the insured receivables portfolio, which is then pledged as security to a lender. This protection gives lenders some added flexibility to expand on advance rates, provide better cost of funds, address concentration issues in the portfolio and include more accounts in the borrowing base that may normally be excluded if they are slower paying. The end goal is to maximize the availability of working capital from that insured group of receivables and provide the client with more money at less risk to the lender.
Note [in the Greensill case] there may have been other financial instruments used that were referred to as credit insurance, but are not the typical trade credit insurance used to protect pledged receivables. Some articles on this story mentioned credit insurance on notes, which could be a different form of coverage on a different aspect of the financing transaction. In this reply, we’re talking to actual trade credit insurance on the underlying accounts receivable being used as security for a line of credit. We can’t really speak to any other financial tools that were employed around the deals that may have helped support the arrangements.
VS: Supply chain financing can be an effective financing alternative and has grown in popularity since the 2008 financial crisis, when some companies had trouble financing their working capital needs through more traditional forms of financing (e.g., revolver, term debt, etc.). The key is to fully understand the arrangement your customer has so you can assess the credit risk. Supply chain financing has the potential to provide much-needed working capital for both seller and buyer.
However, supply chain financing is typically more expensive, which can begin to weaken the company’s financial position over time, because the company receives less money for the goods produced. This has less of an impact when market fundamentals are solid and industry pricing is strong. Also, the lender could pull the financing at its discretion, which could have a material impact on liquidity. All these factors should be considered when reviewing the credit risk of a company using supply chain financing.
Larry Seivers has been named a district manager overseeing the company’s Knoxville, Tennessee, hauling operations.
Meridian Waste, Charlotte, North Carolina, announced March 8 that Larry Seivers has been named a district manager overseeing the company’s Knoxville, Tennessee, hauling operations, including activity at its construction and demolition (C&D) entities Poplar View C&D Landfill and Riverside C&D Landfill.
Seivers and his business partners had previously acquired Riverside C&D Landfill and Poplar View Landfill to form Knoxville Landfills LLC, which was later acquired by Meridian Waste in November 2018. Following the acquisition, Seivers kept the portable restroom portion of the business, which became East Tennessee Portables (ETP). East Tennessee Portables became one of the area’s largest portable restroom providers and was recently acquired in February.
While Seivers has an established waste career, he may be most known for his pre-garbage days as a football player. He was the University of Tennessee’s all-time leader in receptions and receiving yards and was named a two-time consensus All-American in 1975 and 1976. He was awarded the SEC Athlete of the Year in 1977, drafted by the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks in the same year, selected as an SEC Football Legend in 2005, and inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.
“We are excited to bring Larry back to the company,” Wally Hall, CEO of Meridian Waste, says. “He’s a key player in every sense and was responsible in large part for the success of Poplar View and Riverside Landfills prior to Meridian Waste’s acquisition. Our Knoxville operations are now integrated with a hauling organization that provides collection services to permanent and temporary businesses, and we’re well-positioned for continued growth with Larry leading our local team.”
“The garbage business is a lot like football,” Seivers says. “It’s not rocket science, but it does require a committed team of individuals all with different skill sets to work together to provide a successful experience for our customers and a positive working environment for each other. As part of Meridian Waste, I’m looking forward to working with the Knoxville team of waste professionals to grow our customer base, expand into new lines of business, and strengthen our position as a vital infrastructure asset within the region.”
Under the agreement, Action will continue to manufacture vibratory process equipment for a range of industries.
Action Equipment Co. Inc., Newburg, Oregon, has been acquired by Webster Industries. Webster Industries, based in Tiffin, Ohio, is an employee-owned manufacturer of conveyor chains, sprockets, vibrating conveyors and specialty castings.
Under the agreement, Action will continue to manufacture vibratory process equipment for a range of industries. This equipment will include its product lines such as the Taper-Slot Screen, Vibra-Snap Screen and Dense-Out.
“It is an exciting merger—one in which both companies strategically complement each other. Action’s team is passionate about its core competence and strengths, vibratory technology and looks forward to continued marketplace growth alongside Webster. Expect new products, enhanced service for existing relationships, and as always, exceptional equipment designs,” Action President Andrew LaVeine says. “As an employee-owned organization, both Webster and Action operate as a team of owners with each person bringing their abilities, talents, experience and backgrounds for a shared purpose, which is to serve our customers, and we are deeply committed to this end.”