by Bob Lindsay
  TROY, NY — A brownfield site located in the Upstate New York city of Troy will remain an industrial site following the demolition of a pair of dilapidated buildings that harkens back to the city’s once energetic past.
  Crews from Schenectady, NY based ERSI (Environmental Remediation Services, Inc.) began tearing down the first of the decrepit structures in late April, a location known locally as the King Fuels site. Before then, the former industrial facility was the spot where the deck plates of the Civil War ironclad, the USS Monitor, were made. It’s where the American steel industry became established with the Besser Steel plant in 1865.
  According to Timothy Neidzweicki, founded ERSI in June 2001 following more than a decade of experience in the industry, the demolition involved the razing of “two condemned industrial structures that contain both friable and nonfriable asbestos. We’re demolishing buildings No. 8 and No. 9, and we’re actually going to implode the stack at building 9.” Both structures encompass 25,000-square-feet. He said preparation for the demolition began a month earlier.
  “There was not a lot to prepare,” Neidzweicki said, adding that much of the material from the structures had been removed over the years. In essence, the demolition process has been ongoing over several decades.
  “We focused on the removal of friable ACM from the building’s exterior,” he said. “Wrap and cut is the removal of friable pipe material. We used two layers of 6 millimeter fire retardant plastic sheeting. There wasn’t that much there.”
  According to Cliff Wood, who was the ERSI site supervisor at the outset of the demolition, “We pretty much did wrap and cut on the friables, or location cleanups. A little bit of both and a couple wrap and cuts. There wasn’t very much friable in the building, as they’ve been removing it as it was aging. The second building is more friable. Both, the age of the back was a concern. So, we pulled out big sections of this building,” he said, indicating building No. 8, “as friable material. We’ll probably do a lot more machine demolition with this, using a lot of 2.5-inch fire hose.”
  Neidzweicki explained that once the exterior materials were abated, “we removed the windows from the building because they had nonfriable asbestos containing calking material. The consulting firm, Alpine Environmental, was employed by the city and they determined the type of asbestos material and whether it was friable or nonfriable.
  “Once the windows were removed, the nonloadbearing brick exterior walls are pulled away and segregated as clean material. If you see the site, our crusher is down there.”
  ERSI employed a Komatsu PC 1100, “and it’s a beast... it’s a monster. It’s a quarter million pound excavator,” Neidzweicki said.
  After the interior of the structure had been gutted, the brick structures were razed. Crushing was then done using an Eagle 1000 trailer mounted impact crushing plant. “It’s awesome,” he said of the Eagle crushing plant. “A great piece of equipment.”
   The crushed brick will be used as clean fill by the city of Troy.
  “We’ve crushed back at our yard before, but the volume of material at this site made it more economical to do it onsite, plus the city wanted the material for its use,” Neidzweicki said.
  The remaining building we’ll be taking down with materials such as roofing being segregated as nonfriable asbestos; steel being segregated as a recyclable material; and all other building components and insulation being shipped as asbestos containing friable material, Neidzweicki explained.
  “It’s shipped in 30- and 60-yard containers to a landfill located in Western New York, Neidzweicki said. “There’s nothing that can be recycle from that material. By weight, we will recycle 90 percent of the material (but) it depends on the type of structure. When you get into a steel and concrete structure, it usually holds pretty true that you can recycle 80 to 90 percent of the structure by weight. That’s a pretty good figure.”
  In addition to the PC 1100 and the Eagle 1000, other smaller excavators such as Komatsu 400s, 300s, 200s and a Cat 973 Track Loader were used in the demolition, as well as a Genesis GPX 700 shear attachment.
  The cost of the demolition was expected to be between $300,000 and $500,000.
ERSI offers a comprehensive array of environmental demolition and remediation services to both the public and private sectors. With more than 30 years of combined experience, ERSI professionals provide the highest level of service, health & safety compliance, and customer service.
  For more information, contact ERSI at 311 Rotterdam Industrial Park, Building 3, Bay 1, Schenectady, NY 12306. Call 518-355-9617, fax 518-355-9813 or visit www.ersi-usa.com.