Yard equipment company cleans up toxic aftermath from fire in record time, under budget

Client challenge

Uncontrolled fires are dangerous, but for one client, the real hazard manifested once the flames in its inactive lawn mower manufacturing facility were extinguished. The fire not only melted the lawn mowers, but also the lead batteries and other parts within them, creating “hot spot” pits of lead, burned material, and oil and antifreeze across the entire site. The client needed to determine the nature and extent of these hot spots and how to efficiently clean them up. With a cleanup goal of 90 days to beat a federal deadline, which if missed would significantly increase the cleanup cost, our client turned to Haley & Aldrich to come up with a safe, time-sensitive approach to eliminate the problem.

Our approach

The Haley & Aldrich team immediately set to work to formulate and execute an emergency response strategy to support the fire damage and suppression teams. Haley & Aldrich applied a one-team approach by gathering staff from across the nation with the necessary remediation, decommissioning, and demolition skills to meet the site’s complex needs.

The Haley & Aldrich team addressed all of the environmental impacts from the fire — from air monitoring to hazardous waste characterization and profiling — with a comprehensive pre-demolition assessment that included removal and demolition specifications, bid packages, and procurement documents that clearly detailed the cleanup steps. This all-encompassing approach enabled the Haley & Aldrich team to meet the 90-day window despite the arduous site conditions and debris removal methods that required them to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, but which resulted in a significant cost saving for our client.

Value delivered

• Provided a skilled multi-service team to handle the wide array of site issues
• Finished ahead of schedule despite the severity of site contamination
• Finished the project under budget by 30%