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A Specialty Suddenly in Demand
Bio-cleanup companies set to combat anthrax
By Paul Schreiber
STAFF WRITER
October 30, 2001
Two years ago, Tech-Clean Industries Ltd. announced it was available to fight bioterrorism, and it got zero response.
The declaration was a little early, acknowledges Tech-Clean's president Kenneth Coffey, because countering biological aggression seemed remote then to his corporate customers. "The fact is, there weren't any issues at that time, but we wanted to get up to speed because it seemed too easy to do. You can spread a whole lot of terror fairly easily."
Take anthrax.
The recent appearance of the nasty bug has put companies such as Tech-Clean on alert, ready to dispatch technicians in moon suits to destroy the hardy bacteria. And while the company is now getting inquiries from nervous landlords wondering if they should decontaminate their buildings just in case, Tech-Clean still has not had to deploy against anthrax.
"It hasn't risen to that level," Coffey says. "We've been on stand-by in cases of suspected anthrax contamination, but so far, it's proved to be a non-issue."
Typically, Tech-Clean's assignment is to use chemicals and cleaning agents to kill bacteria, fungi, mold, yeast and other organisms that live and breed in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. In 18 years, the Farmingdale company has scrubbed the insides of hundreds of small offices and skyscrapers. Coffey says the company, which has 52 employees in New York, North Carolina and Delaware, had sales last year of about $5 million. Since Sept. 11, the company has worked on the cleanup of about 25 buildings in the Ground Zero area, including the New York and American stock exchanges.
If it were to confront anthrax, Tech-Clean's technicians would use a stronger version of its primary spore-killing agent, a chemical called Penetrox that is produced by a manufacturer in Sweden. Tech-Clean, which has been using Penetrox for three years, contracted 10 days ago with the manufacturer for an exclusive license to distribute the chemical in this country and to train other companies in its use.
Tech-Clean also is increasing the number of employees trained for anthrax work in the cumbersome gear that protects them as they decontaminate buildings compromised by hazardous materials or deadly organisms. These outfits not only seal in the technician, but they also supply the air the employee breathes.
A number of chemicals are used in the decontamination process, including Penetrox and others intended to provide the greatest protection by sterilizing an area. Lesser organisms can be dealt with by using compounds that sanitize or disinfect.
In the severe cases, a building is shut down as the technicians do their work. They remove porous materials such as carpets and drapes, bag and do away with items that cannot be cleaned, scrub all surfaces with disinfectants, spray the sporicidal chemical, which in its aerosol form resembles smoke, and vacuum the areas with high-efficiency machines that filter out virtually all particles.
Coffey does not believe such work should be done on a precautionary basis. "I think a lot of companies are panicking," he said. "These are things you can't see, can't smell, can't feel, and the paranoia is increasing at an alarming rate. I suggest they bring in an epidemiologist and do some testing before they throw their money away out of panic."
The kind of decontamination required for anthrax or other biological agents is expensive and time-consuming and would not inoculate the building against future exposure.
"It's very meticulous work," says David Harvey, vice president of Trade-Winds Environmental Restoration, a subsidiary of Windswept Environmental Group Inc. of Bay Shore. "You're trying not to miss any surface at all."
Trade-Winds also has been involved in the cleanup of buildings contaminated by the whirlwind of debris, dust and airborne particles spawned by the collapse of the Twin Towers. The company, which has 250 employees and sales last year of $23 million, estimates that its cleanup work in lower Manhattan alone will generate more than $2.5 million in this fiscal quarter.
While most of that work has involved getting lesser contaminants out of those buildings, Trade-Winds also has been called in for anthrax work, including the scrub-down and misting of Gov. George Pataki's Manhattan office, where traces of the bacteria were found.
"People are starting to ask us about it," Harvey says of the possibility they would have to deal with anthrax exposure. "A number of our commercial clients have asked us to be prepared for it."
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