Bring it On!

Tough job specialist Haz-Mat Environmental Services continually builds on its diverse industrial vacuum service menu

While some industrial vacuum loading contractors might shy away from hazardous work, such as cleaning tanks holding high flash or explosive materials, Haz-Mat Environmental Services considers challenging and dangerous duty its bread and butter service.

Always seeking to diversify, the Charlotte, N.C.-based Haz-Mat wants to answer the call from new customers with formidable industrial vacuum loading tasks. A long history of seeking new revenue streams is the business-building key that drove the company to double its revenues to $12 million over the past three years.

And constantly looking in new directions for work has led this old-line firm into recycling waste oil, emergency maintenance, CCTV pipe inspection … even a little commercial septage pumping done as a courtesy to regular customers.

MARKET FOR DIVERSITY

Haz-Mat started in 1944 as James Waste Oil, then took on its new name in 1972. Company headquarters is an office and eight-bay garage with wash stall on eight acres. Across the road is its 30,000-square-foot waste treatment plant and 700,000-gallon tank farm for storing wastewater and oil. The largest of 20 above-ground tanks holds 150,000 gallons, but average capacity is 30,000 gallons.

When Ernest Cutter III bought Haz-Mat in 2005, he hired Neil Danziger to enlarge the company’s menu of industrial cleanup capabilities. Drawing on 17 years of experience in the environmental services area, the new operations manager networked with his contacts and achieved Cutter’s initial objectives.

One of the company’s largest contracts is with Duke Energy. The North and South Carolina utility calls Haz-Mat for most of its remediation needs, mainly transformers that spill oil on the ground when they break. A dedicated three- to four-man crew with a service truck, small dump truck, and mini excavator collect and dispose of the liquids and solids.

Duke Energy, however, wanted to develop a wood recycling program to dispose of or recycle pallets, reels, and snapped utility poles treated with copper, chromium, and arsenic, or CCA, all considered contaminates. “We’d never done anything like that before, so we put together a model and presented it to the customer,” says Danziger.

Haz-Mat purchased two large grapple trucks, much like the timber industry uses to grab logs. Employees travel to 48 sites six days a week collecting wood debris. General debris, such as pallets and spools, is chipped, shredded and used for boiler fuel or to cover playgrounds. Weathered utility poles are taken to a landfill, but Duke and Danziger are looking at recycling options.

“Regulations on handling CCA wood debris are very strict,” says Danziger. “Burning it as fuel is prohibited because of the leftover ash and tar. However, we’re working with the U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency to gain approval to burn the debris on the utility’s coal piles.” The Duke Energy contract accounts for approximately 7- to 8-percent of Haz-Mat’s annual revenue.

The company’s main customers are the petrochemical industry and manufacturers of hydraulics and industrial metal parts. Haz-Mat pumps no residential septage, but does service industrial clients’ large domestic sewage runoff pits. “Hauling septage is an added benefit,” says Danziger. “We don’t openly pursue it because that isn’t our forte, but it is part of our service.”

The company uses its Industrial Vac Series vacuum loaders from Wastequip Cusco Inc. to pump less than 50,000 gallons of septage per year. Water is discharged to the city, but solids go to a nearby septic pumping company for disposal, along with a small amount of grease trap waste.

Pumping grease traps is another service done only for the benefit of customers. “It accounts for less than 1 percent of our business because we can’t recycle the grease.”

EMLOYEE PROBLEM SOLVERS

Danziger says his employees have proven creative in solving cleanup challenges. One example involved a quarterly job to clean metal scale waste from milling machines. The men, working in cramped spaces behind and below the machines, broke up the heavy material by hand. Instead of corrugated hose to vacuum the debris, they used solid rubber ones that withstood the sharp edges on the scale.

One day Jackie Fielder, with 30 years of industrial experience, was thinking aloud about integrating a Vactor combination truck with jet rodder to help break up the scale. “Jackie’s idea cut a two-day job in half,” says Danziger. “The customer was very happy to start production a day earlier than usual.”

Haz-Mat’s crews have taken on hazardous jobs other contractors refuse, such as cleaning tanks holding high flash or explosive materials. Cusco vacuum trucks are used because of their grounding and bonding capabilities. “One of our more challenging contracts involves cleaning 20,000-gallon stainless steel tanks containing liquid styrene used to make plastic products,” says Danziger. “It’s very flammable. We pump what is removable and transport it for fuels blending.”

What remains in the tanks has the viscosity of thick honey, and is too rubbery to shovel or push with squeegees. The technicians, following confined space safety procedures, enter through a manway and remove the residue with non-sparking hammers. If the styrene is still gooey, they use hand scrapers.

“It’s intense manual labor, and the job usually comes in summer when the extra gooey styrene has formed basketball-sized stalagmites,” says Danziger. Once the residual solids are removed, workers blast the tanks with walnut shells, which produces a fine finish without damaging the metal.

TOUGH-JOB FLEET

Last year, a large tire production facility in Charlotte closed, and Haz-Mat received the contract to clean 20 process oil tanks holding 10,000 to 40,000 gallons. The largest, a 1-million-gallon six-hole No. 6 fuel oil tank, had tar-like residue. Workers pumped off the liquid through manholes and mixed it on site with sawdust in a roll-off container to form a scoopable substance suitable for transport to the landfill. They then cut a large door in the tank and mixed the remaining sludge with sawdust. Another contractor dismantled the tank after it was hot pressure washed.

Haz-Mat runs eight Industrial Vac Series vacuum loaders from Wastequip Cusco Inc. The trucks have 3,500-gallon debris tanks, Hibon A20 blowers producing 3,000 cfm/28-inches of vacuum, 2,500-psi pressure washers, and 500-gallon freshwater tanks with 35-65 gpm/2,000 psi triplex water pumps. Two HXX HydroExcavators from Vactor Manufacturing Inc. have 2,000-gallon debris tanks, 4,200 cfm/30-inches of mercury blowers, 1,000-gallon freshwater tanks with 12 gpm/10,000 triplex pumps, and jet rodders. Eight vacuum tankers from various makers, with 6,000- and 7,000-gallon aluminum or stainless steel tanks, complete the fleet.

EXPERIENCE COUNTS

Danziger credits an experienced staff for Haz-Mat’s success. Many employees came from a large industrial cleaning and emergency response company that closed in 2002. At the time they had 10 to 15 years of experience. “New hires are typically referred by employees, who feel a sense of responsibility and want the new guy to work out,’’ says Danziger.

All employees have extensive medical benefits, short-term/long-term disability, and a life insurance policy. The company also pays 100 percent of employee health insurance and offers a 401(k) plan.

The acquisition of a pipeline inspection company brought eight people and multiple trucks. Buying the company continued Haz-Mat’s trend toward diversification. Danziger maintains an optimistic outlook for Haz-Mat despite a gloomy economy.

“We expect to do $13 to $14 million in business this year, but I’d like to see it at $20 million,” says Danziger. “We’re always looking for additional acquisitions that fit our company and enable customers to make one call for all their environmental needs.”



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