DSHS, Clark Construction use innovative ways to be more sustainable
(LAKEWOOD) — In order to make way for a new therapeutically designed 350-bed modern hospital that will transform behavioral health care for forensic patients, many of the original brick buildings which housed staff and patients on the campus of Western State Hospital needed to be demolished.
And that effort has created a lot of demolition debris — mainly wood, concrete, brick and metal rebar.
The Department of Social and Health Services is working with Clark Construction Group, the contractor for the project, on innovative ways for the debris to be used more sustainably as well as generate avenues to provide some cost savings to the project.
“This sustainability effort aligns well with DSHS’ and the Governor’s Office priorities of maintaining healthy and safe communities,” said Aaron Martinez, senior capital projects manager for DSHS Capital Programs.
Truckload after truckload of demolition debris from the project could have been dumped in a nearby landfill, taking up valuable landfill space and increasing diesel exhaust as those trucks drove through Lakewood to the dump site.
Instead, Clark has assembled an on-site separating and crushing operation, said Taylor Johnson, project executive for Clark Construction.
Three debris piles have emerged on the east side of the campus on the former baseball field. Concrete, brick and metal rebar are separately piled nearly 20 feet high. The project’s demolition contractor, Dickson Demolition and Abatement, has been separating and sorting the debris throughout the process, at times using a giant magnet to separate the metal rebar from concrete.
The brick and concrete are being ground down into finer pieces — to the tune of between 400 to 700 tons a day. Clark estimates there’s about 21,000 tons of debris material on site. The metal rebar will be recycled, and the concrete and brick finer pieces will be used as fill to build temporary roads, and as a base for new roads, parking lots and sidewalks.
“We’re not purchasing new material and having it trucked in; we’re using what is already here onsite,” Johnson said. “There’s an environmental and cost benefit — we’re not wasting what can be used.”
That amounts to nearly $1 million in savings for the project, Johnson said.
“As a department, we’re thrilled to be able to work with Clark to recycle, reuse and salvage as much material as possible, not only for the financial benefits, but also as good stewards of the environment by reducing the carbon footprint of the project,” Martinez said.
Some of the fill will even end up in the new forensic hospital buildings — a mixture of old and new. Clark used the recycled fill to bring a basement of an original hospital building that was demolished to level to serve as a base for the new foundation for the administration building.
Some of the wood debris will be reused as well. Trees that were removed to make way for the construction will be mulched into beauty bark which will be incorporated into the new landscaping. Some wood beams salvaged from the former Building 11 will find new life in one way or another in the administration building — adding yet one more link to a storied, 152-year-old past.
