Recyclers Pick Up Pieces After Block Is Leveled

The demolition of a whole city block would ordinarily yield enough waste to earn its own landfill.

But not the 500 block of downtown Ventura, on which a new theater and shopping complex are set to rise in 1998.

After the last dust mote settles from the recent demolition of its dozen or so storefronts, about the only thing left to cart off to the Toland landfill will be some asbestos and broken glass.

Nearly everything is being recycled, sold or reused, from the ancient fluorescent lights in the old Montgomery Ward building to the Spanish terra-cotta tiles on the roof of the old Pump Room storefront.

With Century West Environmental Inc. overseeing the wrecking crew to make sure hazardous waste is safely dealt with, the William Olson Demolition Co. of Chatsworth has performed a methodical, even surgical, dismantling of the block. The only building left standing in a block that has long been part of the heart of old downtown Ventura is the Bank of America.

“Before you can demolish buildings, you must make sure the hazardous building materials are removed properly,” said Century West’s Stan Stachura in his east Ventura business. Asbestos and lead paint were popular construction materials 50 or more years ago.

“We do asbestos risk management, and we found there wasn’t as much asbestos in the block as we’d feared,” he said. “We had the Jack Rose building painted with lead paint encapsulant, so that when the concrete is busted up next week, no toxic dust escapes.”

Stachura said that even the old fluorescent lighting fixtures in the buildings have the toxin PCB.

“But the rest of the components in the fixtures--lead, copper and tin--will be recycled. The fluorescent bulbs contain mercury gas, so they’re going to a facility that removes the gas for reuse.”

All the concrete from the Jack Rose building will be broken up and taken to the Santa Clara riverbed, where it will become flood control riprap.

“A good demolition contractor salvages and reuses as much as possible,” Stachura said.

Officials at William Olson Demolition agree.

“Dumping debris is very expensive,” said demolition superintendent Lane Olson. “The less we have to haul off, the better.

“Lots of the concrete is being hauled off to S.P. Milling,” he said. “We’ve pulverized some walls and retrieved all the rebar and steel--it’s 100% recycling. We’re selling it to a salvage yard.”

The wood in the buildings--from the ‘30s and ‘40s--was removed slab by slab and sold to a lumberyard in Mexicali.

“And all the bricks got cleaned and are being sold for reuse,” Olson said as he stood on the bulldozed dirt pad where Montgomery Ward once did business.

“Plus, all this recycling saves on what we cart to landfills.”

In the case of the 500 block, what goes around literally comes around.