"Military Base Buildings: Carefully Pounding Swords Into Plowshares"

by Beth Regula-Thompson

With today's global politics and domestic economy, military base closures are a reality facing many California communities. How can communities benefit from these base closures? Are any of the valuable materials that went into building these military bases salvageable for reuse today, or are they all going to end up in the landfills?

At CalMAX, we've found several entrepreneurs who are not only making a living salvaging a portion of the materials from these base closures, but are actually operating businesses and creating local jobs in the process. How are they doing this and what are they doing with the materials? Recently, three leading examples in the growing deconstruction and reuse business discussed their activities with CalMAX.

Matthew Levesque is the Program Manager of Building REsources Materials Re-use in the Bay Area. Recently, this nonprofit organization worked on a demolition project with Beyond Waste (see below) at the closed Presidio Army Compound in San Francisco. Out of the two buildings they deconstructed, they were able to salvage roughly 85 percent of the first building, and approximately 40 percent of the second building. On that project, material sorting was performed on site, where materials were stacked in piles and bundles. Salvaged items included timbers, dimensional lumber, flooring, windows, ceiling vent covers, iron work, plumbing fixtures, and siding. Most sales took place at the deconstruction site, avoiding the significant cost of transportation, while the remaining materials were taken to the Building REsources Materials Reuse warehouse in San Francisco and sold within eight months. The Presidio Army Compound was recently turned over to the National Park Service following cleanup.

Pavitra Crimmel is a General Partner of Beyond Waste in Santa Rosa. She reports they are presently working with Youth Employment Partnership, Inc., where Beyond Waste is training 12 young people to properly deconstruct buildings at the Port of Oakland, a former naval supply center. The warehouse they are currently deconstructing has over 400,000 board feet of lumber, including old-growth douglas fir and redwood. Fortunately for the project, the federal government signed the Port of Oakland over to the Port Authority of Oakland. Removing federal labor requirements allowed flexibility in approaching the work, saving a lot of time with bureaucratic paperwork and red tape. Beyond Waste has on-site storage for materials recovered through the project. For their first run at marketing, Beyond Waste is hosting an open house at the port and is sending invitations to local architects and contractors advertising the materials available. When they are finished, any remaining materials will go to their warehouse in Santa Rosa for storage (which is limited) until they are sold.

Ted Reiff is the President of Building Material Distributors, a nonprofit organization located in San Diego that specializes in recovering materials that can be shipped south into Mexico. Ted informed CalMAX that the total number of bases in San Diego will actually grow in the coming years, as installations elsewhere (such as in Long Beach) move to the area. However, many existing buildings are coming down, and Building Material Distributors is currently in negotiations for demolition and deconstruction work at the Naval Training Center. Salvageable materials may include the following: lumber, all fixtures (doors, plumbing, and windows), ferrous and nonferrous metals, concrete, and scrap wood for mulching. Due to the close proximity to the Mexican border, few materials from their demolition jobs end up in the landfill. Building Material Distributors has yards for recovered building materials in both San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, and as a nonprofit, either sells or donates the materials they salvage.

The above examples are not the only groups involved with this type of work. As more bases close throughout the state and convert to civilian uses, more businesses can participate in salvageable deconstructions like those portrayed here. One crucial factor in this business is proper training of the crews. The more conscientious and trained the crews are, the more valuable materials can be salvaged from a job; materials such as old-growth lumber no longer available on the "new" market. For more information, please refer to Other Reuse Programs.

Remember that both wanted and available salvaged materials can be advertised in both our CalMAX catalog and on-line service!

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Last updated: February 27, 2008