By Susan Elise Campbell
For environmental cleaning, remediation and other specialized services, the Queensbury office of Maviro, Inc. has a growing presence in the North Country down to Albany, west to Syracuse and east to Vermont, said James Vogt, vice president of the East Region for the Houston-based corporation
Vogt started the New York division three years ago in Clifton Park. Since then he has overseen a move to Queensbury Avenue, the purchase of equipment, acquisition of two other companies, and a staff increase from two people to 16, he said.
“The key to industrial services in the region we serve is the environmental services line,” said Vogt.
Those services range from removing an old residential oil tank to chemical cleaning of a power plant to remediation projects under contract with the DEC, he said.
Maviro’s customer base includes many different types of customers and almost any type of industrial facility, and together they come up with the best solutions, says the company website.
For safely disposing of a storage tank that is above ground or from a basement or underground, Maviro provides homeowners “a turn-key service that is unique in the industry,” said Vogt.
That project starts with sending a project manager, who is likely to be an environmental scientist, to scope the project, do the probing, estimate the size of the tank, and decide how much soil, sidewalk or asphalt material needs to be moved, Vogt explained.
“Then we pull out the tank, cut it, decon it, clean it, and haul it away,” he said. “Next step is to test the soil for hazardous contaminants.”
If the soil tests clean, they backfill the area, add sod, and seed it, he said.
“If it’s dirty, we then remediate using our equipment and staff, and haul away the contaminated soil to an acceptable disposal facility, according to New York State regulation,” he said. Then they fill, sod and seed.
According to Vogt, Maviro has the only operation in the North Country that can do all facets of such a project from start to finish. The benefit to customers could be faster response, as there are teams on call 24/7.
Another advantage, Vogt said, is that the Queensbury staff live locally and know the geography and back roads of the area.
This turnkey service is one of the biggest needs the North Country has, he said.
Spill response, or emergency response, is another major aspect of Maviro’s business upstate, which, combined with removing residential storage tanks, represents about 35 percent of their business.
“A homeowner getting their winter fill may realize there is a leaky fuel pipe,” said Vogt. “Now the basement is full of oil or it trickles down the wall perhaps going to a stream.”
Maviro has the equipment and personnel to do emergency response for that property to contain a leak and subsequently clean it up. The Maviro team can work with the customer’s insurance company and contact the DEC to set up the “spill number,” he said, as all spills must be reported and the homeowner may prefer the project manager to communicate for them.
Like some of its competitors, Maviro has a contract with DEC to do investigative and remedial services.
“The contract with DEC is for longer-term remediation for hazardous clean-up, whether landfills or spills or buildings, or whatever has a current potential to be hazardous to humans, plants or animals,” he said. “They want that cleaned up and that’s what we do.”
When the DEC calls, a team is dispatched to detail the site and may do geoprobing, a drilling process of taking core samples from the earth. Vogt said this shows how deep the contaminants are and how much soil would have to be removed to clean.
“You will always see the state involved with PCBs or Tetrachloroethylene, a dry cleaning chemical,” he said.
Vogt said they get calls when people buying or selling property either know a tank is underground or they see a pipe at the surface and need to find out what it is.
“If we’re not comfortable saying this is a tank and here is the size, we may hire someone to lay a footprint,” he said. “In most cases if there is a pipe, there is a tank attached to it.”
Vogt tells homeowners not to be nervous about heavy equipment coming into the neighborhood or digging holes in their yard.
“We have done a lot of residential work and are very professional,” he said.
Maviro is also highly safety-conscious. Vogt said his company sets the standard higher than what OSHA regulates for a safe work environment,.
Maviro, Inc. is at 537 Queensbury Avenue in Queensbury and is best reached through the link on pesnyinc.com.