|
|
 |
Building Salvage Success Story at Fort McCoy.
by: Finley, Dana.
Building salvage success story at Fort McCoy
by Dana Finley
A demolished guest house at Fort McCoy has been reincarnated as a Baptist
church near Sparta, Wisconsin. Is it a miracle? Not really--just good business
sense at work in Fort McCoy's Directorate of Public Works (DPW).
The church was built with lumber salvaged under a process the DPW has been
reinventing since 1992. By allowing people in the local community to bid
on dismantling old buildings, Fort McCoy has saved more than 70 percent
on demolition and disposal costs while cutting the amount of landfilled
waste 85 percent.
"We needed to simplify the contract to just include the pertinent things
they have to do," said Fred Weiner, Acting Chief of the Engineering
Resource Management Division. "Then we eliminated the bid bond--we
figured if a guy's going to be out here tearing down a building for himself,
he's not going to have the money to post bond."
Weiner's team began laying the groundwork for salvaging after the Army mandated
a facility reduction program to demolish WWII "temporary" buildings.
The status quo was to contract with large demolition companies who used
heavy equipment to smash the buildings. All of the debris went to construction
waste landfills.
"Some installations were paying in excess of $20 a square foot to demolish,
compared to about $2 per square foot at Fort McCoy if it's salvaged,"
said Art Davey, planner and estimator in the DPW, adding that it used to
cost thousands of dollars per building just for landfill tipping fees.
Believing there would be enough local interest in salvaging, Fort McCoy
worked with the Corps of Engineers' Huntsville Division and contract specialists
to change the rules. The result was a service-type contract under which
individuals or small groups offer their price for dismantling and hauling
off buildings. "We decided that instead of creating roadblocks, we'd
do as much as we could to help them," Weiner said.
The response from the community has been overwhelming, with over 250 bids
offered. To date, 73 buildings have been salvaged under the program. Fort
McCoy's efforts have been so successful that researchers at the U.S. Army
Construction Engineering Research Laboratories (CERL) are including them
as a case study in a project to develop recycling programs for construction
waste.
According to CERL researcher Patrick Dolan, Fort McCoy's initiative could
serve as a model for an Army-wide program. "They've developed guidance
for the salvagers that includes safety training for handling wood with lead-based
paint on it, and how that wood can be used," he said. The DPW also
produced a videotape for prospective salvagers.
Under the terms of the contract, Fort McCoy removes all friable asbestos
and provides dumpsters for the contractors. The installation also takes
away the waste concrete since most people do not have heavy equipment or
any use for this debris.
"After the contractor is through, we have troops bring in dozers to
pile up what's left. They take the waste concrete up to the quarry in their
dump trucks and run it through a crusher. Then we use the crushed concrete
for riprap and streambank improvement, or just recycle it as aggregate on
the roads," Weiner said.
The contract requires salvagers to remove the roof and siding first. This
helps ensure that the whole job is completed instead of having contractors
just pull off the choice lumber and leave. "We figure that if they
put all that labor into it, they'll stick around to finish it," Davey
explained.
Besides the cost savings to the Army for demolition and disposal, the salvage
program benefits the local community. People have used the lumber to build
houses, hunting cabins, garages, sheds, and a couple of churches, according
to Weiner.
Eric Rhyner said their congregation spent about $1,500 to buy the guest
house. The second story alone had enough timber for their church, so they
sold the downstairs material for $1,250. Church members did most of the
construction on the new building except for some specialized work like taping
and sheetrocking.
"We'd been told that the plan we wanted to build would cost about $200,000"
for materials and labor," Rhyner said. "When we finished with
the wood we salvaged, we had only spent about $38,000 for everything."
"When people build with what they salvage, they're buying nails and
sheetrock and so on, which helps the local economy," Weiner said. "Then
after it's built, along comes the tax assessor and raises their property
value, which adds to the local tax base."
Arnie and Ruth Schroeder turned lumber from Building 542 into a new house
for themselves and added space for their auto body business. They had local
carpenters inspect their salvaged lumber, who reported that it was in better
shape than that available on the market today. The Schroeders wrote Fort
McCoy, "We will forever take pride in the accomplishments we made with
the salvaged lumber."
"It's a win-win situation all the way around," Weiner said.
Fort McCoy received the Army's 1993 Outstanding Resource Management Organization
Award for their efforts in making the salvage program possible.
In 1995, CERL plans to draw heavily on Fort McCoy's experience to develop
standard guidance for dismantling and reusing wooden structures. According
to CERL researcher Stephen Cosper, another important product will be a handbook
for visually and mechanically grading the scrap wood. CERL will work with
the West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau in grading studies to compare recovered
wood with virgin lumber.
For more information on Fort McCoy's salvage program, contact Fred Weiner
or Art Davey in the DPW, 608-388-3386 or -2098. To learn more about CERL's
research on recycling construction waste, contact Patrick Dolan or Stephen
Cosper at 217-352-6511 or toll-free 800-USA-CERL.
|
Conservation: An Investment That Pays from Trust for Public Land is intended to help agency personnel and community conservationists make the case for conservation as a long-term economic investment.
Based on the National Building Museum's exhibit, Green Community is a collection of thought-provoking essays that illuminate the connections among personal health, community health, and our planet's health.
|
|
 |
