Demolition Complete at NASA Plumbrook Station

NASA Plumbrook Station is a research and development facility in Sandusky, Ohio that has been around since 1941. The facility was operated by the war department as a munitions plant until the end of WWII. In 1956, NASA began its involvement with the facility, and through the years has worked with government and private industry to develop and refine many of the advanced aspects of our space program.

In October of 2012, Independence Excavating was awarded the first of two demolition contracts at the facility. We were to remove some features that had long outlived their usefulness at the H&K sites of the facility. The features to be demolished included concrete structures, along with steel buildings and test equipment that were outdated and decommissioned by NASA. The wide range of things to be demolished definitely added to the difficulty of the job.

Our crew started by tearing down complex equipment like a hydrogen slushier unit, which consisted of tubes and tanks and insulating chambers that all had to be carefully separated to be properly recycled. We then moved on to a concrete building. From the outside it did not look like much of a challenge, but with more investigation, we learned that it was built to protect its contents. The walls were a minimum of 18 inches thick and heavily reinforced. The demolition of this building was carried out systematically to separate and recycle about 95% of the material from the site ‐ leaving very little waste for the landfill.

We have worked very hard to make this a successful job for both Independence Excavating and NASA. At this point we have one more site under contract at the facility and are hoping to expand our working relationship with NASA in the future.