Environmental Solutions could bill itself as a restoration company, because its services mostly do not involve new construction. Primarily, the company engages in deconstruction, reclamation, decontamination, abatement, and debris and waste removal. 

In short, the company addresses situations that, though dissimilar, all have in common the need for fixing or restoring. “We do our best to stick with what we are good at and we are good at a lot of different things,” says Austin Proctor, the company’s business development and operations manager. 

The company’s services lend themselves to helping communities and industries recover from disasters, natural or human-made. “We don’t get hurricanes every day, but when we do there’s a large recovery effort. Same with floods and storm surges. We do not do much with snowstorms, but we had a bad ice storm years ago in Texas,” Proctor recalls.

ASSORTED SERVICES

When Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana in 2021, Environmental Solutions was called to work on an industrial facility near New Orleans. Water inside the facility had risen to the 3-foot level, destroying furnishings and sheetrock in a machine shop, business offices and common areas — spawning the growth of mold.

“We removed the water-damaged material and prepared for a big mold remediation project. When we started removing the mold-impacted material, we detected asbestos in the walls as well,” says the operations manager. “We had a pretty large operation there for six or seven months.”

The company also is called upon after storms have downed lines. “We are seeing an increasing need for the hydroexcavation trucks. Our crews simply are given maps where holes need to be dug for installation of new utility poles.”

Thus, clients for the company’s services range from utility companies to power companies that experience transformer malfunctions resulting in contaminated soil to oil and gas industry firms needing ground or water remediation interventions, as well as to state or federal agencies looking for help with recovery.

UNWANTED BUSINESS

No one wishes for disaster — not even companies like Environmental Solutions that profit from offering recovery services after a big blow or a river overflows its banks. “Hurricanes can keep you busy, but we don’t want them,” Proctor says. “They can produce profits for a company, but they produce a whole lot more hardship for a community.”

So, when Environmental Solutions gets a call from a company that has been battered by a storm or floodwaters, or a state agency that’s eyeing a public environmental disaster, Proctor is receptive, but not exultant. “We don’t get hurricanes every day, but when we do, the company can make a lot of money. Even so, the focal point of all that we do is to get things up and running again. The No. 1 objective is the recovery of normalcy in everyone’s life.”

One factor that helps the company keep its perspective during disaster work is that the lives of its employees are just as impacted as the people whose properties experienced disruption. “Sometimes a company from up north that wasn’t reached by a Gulf storm comes in and makes a killing. But our company, being local, has been impacted by the storm, too. It’s a lot more personal.”

He says that as a Louisiana native and as the son of a man who also had a career in environmental work in and around the state. Proctor unintentionally gravitated toward the work after earning a degree in another discipline at a college in state. Five years ago, he signed on with Environmental Solutions. 

Still, not all disasters worked on by the company blow into Louisiana from the Gulf. When a health worker discovers asbestos exposure in a tract of homes in Indianapolis or in a large commercial building in Little Rock, Environmental Solutions is apt to be bidding for the work of abating it. It’s licensed to remove asbestos in a dozen states running clear north to Chicago.

“We are an aggressive company,” the 34-year-old business development manager says. “We’re pretty aggressive in finding work. If someone calls for help from a state where we aren’t licensed to work, we’re going to get a license in that state.”

DISPOSAL DIFFICULTIES 

When dangerous material is involved, the question becomes where to dispose of it. The answer varies. “Each facility may have a preferred waste program requiring waste to go to a certain disposal place. The client will dictate that. Other times, you get comparative quotes on disposal. Sometimes, reusable material is involved — concrete that can be crushed and reused, for instance. So, the material in the waste stream ends up in a place deemed appropriate by law or at a place based on price.”

All of this deconstruction and removal requires quite an assortment of equipment, so Environmental Solutions has a full complement of machinery. More than a dozen hydroexcavation trucks are on call — and one air vac truck for special use — plus four vac trucks, various sizes of hydraulic earthmoving equipment (excavators, skid-steers), dump trucks and 18-wheel flatbeds to haul the heavy machinery.

Because company employees must take special precautions when working around concentrations of mold, asbestos or lead, 16-foot trailers carry crews’ personal protective equipment and hand tools. 

Then there’s a trailer-mounted, factory-built multishower decontamination unit. “It’s a unique piece of equipment that keeps our employees safe from cross-contamination when they’re on the site. It’s very impressive,” Proctor says.

Because the company offers such a diverse lineup of services, employees become generalists in their skill sets. Everyone is cross-trained, the operations manager says — and trained well.

PREPPING THE TEAM

“There’s a giant effort on our part to have employees properly trained. We concentrate a lot on training. You can get yourself in a bad bind otherwise. We spend lots of money on training, safety and PPE. Every morning before each workday, we have a documented safety meeting in which we discuss hazards that might be encountered that day.”

Besides preparing its 30 or so fieldworkers for a safe workday, the ongoing commitment to safe and effective work procedures “gives our clients peace of mind,” Proctor says. “They come to know we are not just throwing anyone out there. They’re trained to do the job.”

The reward of such policies, besides every employee going home at the end of the workday, is work being well done and clients feeling well-satisfied. “Our guys do a great job. They really do. They back up the things we’re telling the clients. Confidence in our crews has grown to a point that almost 100% of the time, if we can win a job, the project owner becomes a repeat-client.”

He adds that his goal is to make a friend of each client. “We take a lot of pride in our business relationships and in the service our customers get. We are in it for the long haul with our customers.”

NOT ALL DISASTER WORK

“The market discipline of environmental work is so broad,” Proctor says. “It means so many different things. Wetlands. Erosion control. Air standards. Soil contamination. We do a lot of different things.”

Sometimes environmental work is indistinguishable from ordinary heavy machinery work. For example, demolition of industrial structures, such as warehouses or factories. The company takes on such work whether or not hazardous materials are involved.

“We have clients with older assets just sitting there,” Proctor explains. “We put our guys to work demolishing the facility and the scrap value of the assets produces a check that goes into the client’s pocket. In other scenarios, a client may have an asset that does contain potential hazardous material, say, asbestos. If we can remove the potential hazard before a storm arises to suddenly make it a public hazard, in our eyes it’s best to do it.”