Demolition Firm Takes Large Role in Gulf Coast Cleanup

Rhino Construction, a Bay St. Louis, Miss.-based demolition firm, has joined up with two large civil construction companies based in Mississippi, T.L. Wallace and Eutaw Construction, to assist in the cleanup of 26 miles of the Gulf Coast that were damaged by the BP oil spill earlier this year.

In discussing the company’s role in cleaning up after the spill, Ricky Myers, Rhino’s president and COO, says, “While Rhino didn’t have first-hand experience in cleaning up after such a massive oil disaster, we do handle hazardous materials daily, and we were on the front line cleaning up after the country’s worst natural disaster. That certainly gave Wallace and Eutaw the confidence they needed to know that we’d get the job done.”

At one time, the company added as many as 650 workers to help remove oil from the beaches.

The first step the company took was to hire consultants from Green Works Environmental Services of California to help with a strategy and the training of hundreds of employees. Green Works has previous experience in handling oil spills. Each employee hired for the cleanup was required to go through a 40-hour Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) training on handling hazardous materials.

Myers notes that Rhino’s experience in the demolition business not only provided the resources needed to create a staging area, but also helped to make the project more environmentally friendly. “We recycled 20,000 tons of crushed concrete from some of our previous demolition projects and used it as the base for the laydown yard, which houses equipment and vehicles, as well as roadways. We wanted this effort to be as green as possible.”

Myers says his crews could be working through March or April of next year. “We are going to be out there until we get it all cleaned up,” Myers adds.