Asbestos, Radon & Environmental Site Assessments in Atlantic Canada — ALL-TECH Environmental Services (30 Years)

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0:42Welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today we have with us ALL-TECH Environmental — got three members of their team here today. Larry Koughan sitting across from me from Prince Edward Island, Senior Environmental Consultant. Dwayne Timmons, Environmental Engineer, Sydney, Nova Scotia. And Brian Fraser to my left from New Brunswick. Brian's been with the company for 28, 29 years, Larry as well, and Dwayne for 11, 12. I'm the newbie. You're the newbie? Yeah, still a newbie after 10 years. Still the baby. But a neat scenario today, just

1:23with a representative from Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, and from New Brunswick. So it kind of gets a little feel for the different provinces within an Atlantic-wide environmental company like ALL-TECH. And yeah, excited to have you guys on. And I'm going to mention before we start that Larry Koughan — my mother's cousin — so sitting across the table from my mother's second cousin. That's why when I got introduced, I got introduced properly. Kim — nobody ever gets that name right. Yeah. I was surprised nobody gets that name right. Yeah.

1:53I can hear the comments coming in now. The East Coast Atlantic Construction — probably sitting across from a gentleman I've never met and he's my mother's second cousin. So maybe there'll be a few — a very East Coast situation. "What's your father doing?" So we're keeping it in the family here today. No, yeah, thanks for being with us, gentlemen, and yeah, just looking forward to discussing, you know, ALL-TECH in general and all kinds of scenarios on the environmental front and just some different things about the

2:23different markets. But usually we get started by just a little bit of background — your journey in the industry, with the company. So maybe we'll start with you, Larry. Said you went to Holland College and, yeah, back in the day. Back in the day — graduated from Holland College in the Environmental Technology program. And ironically, my first job with ALL-TECH was at Holland College in Charlottetown. And Terry loves telling this story about him hiring me one day. I had no idea what asbestos was and I

2:59learned a little bit that day. He drove away, gave me a pair of rubber boots and a respirator, and told me what I'd have to do — just thrown right into it. But anyway, no, it was — and that was, like I say, in '95. And I started up PEI as kind of a branch office at the time and just kind of continued. I looked after New Brunswick then for a little while, and then Brian was in Halifax at that time, and then Brian took over New

3:29Brunswick later. So I was kind of quite happy when that happened, to give up that large territory. But no, it's been a great 28 years with the company and a great place to be. Nice. What about you, Dwayne? You know, I guess I started my environmental journey at CBU. As we sat in there earlier — spent about three, four years there, which included two years getting my environmental diploma on my way to my environmental engineering degree. Hung around CBU for an additional two

4:01years to pick up some math courses and eventually get my Bachelor of Science. And I didn't want to dwell on those calculus courses — yeah, torture myself for another couple of years for whatever reason, spent some more money. But anyway, eventually moved on to Dalhousie where I did finish off my engineering degree. Luckily, at the time the Sydney Tar Ponds remediation project was just starting to go into full swing. So when I was coming out there were actually some job opportunities. This was upon your graduation? Yeah, right around when

4:27I was graduating I was able to reach out and contact the former manager there to get me a job in Sydney. Anyway, persistence — exactly. And yeah, ended up working in Sydney at the Tar Ponds project, and that was a good time. Yeah, yeah, exactly — exactly. Because I know so many people that graduated with me that had to go west to Ontario to get jobs and that kind of stuff. So it was nice to move home. Yeah, wow. And Brian — you're another veteran

4:55with the company. Said you went to university with President Terry Smith. Terry — Terry and I took Environmental Engineering Technology. At that time it was the first of the three-year co-op program. On graduation, actually Terry and I kind of met up again in Halifax. We were working for Menenko Trail Engineering, so we worked there for — I was only there probably about a year, Terry was there a little longer. And then we parted ways again and I went to work

5:25for another company and worked with those guys for probably about two years. And then Terry always had this idea, yeah, and I remember him talking to me about it a couple of times. First I thought, I don't know, I'm skeptical about this. But we actually kept bumping into each other, right? And then it was like it was meant to be, yeah. Like I was in Newfoundland and he called me up and told me, "No, this is it. I'm going to start it, I'm going to lead

5:53these guys." And I said, "Okay, keep in touch." And I think it was in a couple of months he called me, started it. "I need some work." So I sent him some work, right? So I actually left that company after about two or three years and let him know. "Oh yeah, well when you get home" — I was in Newfoundland at the time — "let me know." So I was home for a couple of months in '95, I think. January, called me up. "Got a job for you to do. Come on

6:21here we go." Yeah. So here you are 30 years later. Yeah, still at it. Wow, yeah. It's a good story. I think you notice that entrepreneurial spirit where — you mentioned, like, you know, he's thinking about it, couldn't get away from it, kept coming up, kept running into each other, and then finally just had to. It's almost like he had to do it. Yeah. And he probably — you know, he didn't know everything at the time. No. Might not have had any work, but he's the guy that kind of

6:46somebody had to take the risk and get it going, right? Well, we'd work for other companies and we'd seen how it was being done, but it was always — the way we weren't quite happy with it. Yeah. So yeah, kind of — we want to try to put a personal touch on our services and how we felt. And no, I know Terry — where he felt strongly about that. And we were always like a phone call away or down the road. We'd always take the phone

7:12call, try to help the client get a situation sorted. That's what it was always about. Yeah. I was going to wait till the end to bring up Terry and the 30-year anniversary, but now that we're on the topic, I mean, it's got to be pretty satisfying for him and for you three in general — Larry and Brian and yourself, Dwayne — you know, 30 years is no small feat. And then to have that kind of retention with employees that have been involved in the

7:36ground floor and, you know, partners and friends really, right? It's — you know, you can't fake that, and a lot of them don't last that long, right? Yeah, that's right. So it's got to be — I know it's a big week for your team here in the city. Everyone's gathered, probably don't see each other face to face across the Maritimes, you know, all that often — although you do travel and work together on stuff in different places. But what's that been like, just

8:00to kind of reflect back on the 30 years with the team? Yeah, it's been — it's been personally a lot of fun. Like I say, Brian and I have been pretty well — and Rob Gardner as well — and Dave's been here just about as long too. And I remember going back to my interview with Terry. At the time there were people that were more educated than me and had better qualifications. But there was just something — we had a connection. And I

8:33think just — and I think that's what he's done. He's surrounded himself with similar, like-minded people. And I think that's the way we all operate. We just seem to work well together. And it's a good bunch of guys. And our staff — like I say, everyone has that same mentality of just people first and just connecting with people and making those connections. Yeah. And Ryan and I were at the office to meet Terry this month, and we got

9:00that feeling. And it doesn't happen by accident. Just a really good culture. Everybody seemed professional but everybody seemed to be friends. You could just tell — like everyone in the room wasn't just colleagues but actual, you know, friends. And it was just an atmosphere — a really, really good culture. That was a breath of fresh air when we were visiting the office early this month. So we noticed that. Yeah. You know, I think one of the

9:28kind of objectives is to give some context about a company like ALL-TECH — an environmental company in the construction industry, residential and commercial industrial. Just to kind of talk about — you know, there's so many services that you guys provide. It's almost like one of those things if you're in sales or business development, like you don't want to spit it all out to a potential client. It's just too much to take in. But

9:53maybe we can kind of segment it a little bit. You know, there's hazardous materials, there's air testing, there's your spec writing. What are some examples that you're bidding on, some tenders? I mean, obviously a large portion of what you do is kind of retrofits and remediation, that kind of stuff. But as far as new builds in commercial, what's the avenue there typically? Is it spec writing, is it planning and project

10:27management? Can anyone speak to that a little bit? I'd say it'd be a little bit more geared towards the testing or monitoring — they're on-site engineering controls, I guess you could say. So like a lot of the new builds that are going up are requiring dust monitoring, noise monitoring, and then we're able to provide those services to make sure they're operating within the guidelines and regulations. And this is during construction or post? During

10:57construction, yeah. Like towards the end there — like new construction, you know, everybody's aware of LEED testing and buildings. So that's one of the services we provide: before the building's occupied, come in and do the testing for LEED certification. To make sure they meet all the criteria for the building materials they put in. So those will be numerous tests — there's a whole thing in the specification that gives some examples. Maybe like

11:23some of it is air testing, some of it's materials, noise ratings. Well, it's mostly — it's mostly airborne. So you're looking at the building materials to make sure they're low VOCs, right? And making sure that the ventilation system is actually doing what it's supposed to be doing. So airborne particulates — if you're putting any kind of carpets down, making sure it's not releasing any chemicals, so any off-gassing. Exactly, yeah — off-gassing. And there's certain ways of doing it, like you could have a building complete it,

11:51turn the heat up for 30 days and bake it off. But nobody has time to do that, so everybody goes to testing. So we're in for like — a lot of some of the jobs that we do, this LEED testing, and it's like two days and it's thousands of dollars worth of equipment and sampling just to get their accreditation for their points, just to be certified, and you have to have the equipment to do the testing to get that. Yeah. Oh yeah,

12:17it's a big undertaking. And we also provide other services for new construction — like fire rating, like spray fireproofing that goes into a building, like intumescent spray and stuff like that. So we test that — we'll go and follow the specification and we'll do a density test of a new application. Exactly, right. Yeah, like you'll take whatever that kind of measurement tool is and kind of measure the thickness. Exactly. It could be just like a simple thickness test on a sprayed material. Or if it's intumescent

12:45paint, we can do the thickness on the paint. We'll even collect samples of the material that was sprayed on, send it into the lab, and make sure it met what was in the spec for density and such. And so — maybe just even add on top of that — where we do some testing services where you might be pile-driving for a new foundation. Well, there's certain noise criteria that you're supposed to operate within. You know, OHS regulations prescribe that in the municipality that you're in.

13:11Exactly. So we deploy the equipment and make sure they're operating within those guidelines. And that could be dust — could be dust as well, yes. Dust sampling. And another side of that too, on the medical side, in hospitals and stuff like that — we also have to do infection control protocols for contractors doing renovations, like negative pressure environments. Yeah, any kind of renovations they're doing in hospitals because there's a lot more strict guidelines when you're in those healthcare facilities. So we look after that in terms of

13:47training some of the workers for getting ready to do any infection control work, and some of the specifications for it and all that, when it comes to those jobs. So healthcare — is healthcare one of those arenas where you're taking up a lot of revenue for a company like ALL-TECH? Like, there's a lot of jobs you do, or maybe when you do get those projects they're kind of more

14:13in-depth and more complex and there's more services that you're providing on one job? Yeah, there can be. And it depends on the region we're in too. Like, I know in Charlottetown and in PEI, the QEH has done a number of renovations. They're going under another one here now as well — they're just consistently

14:35— no parking lot left. No, no, no. So — I'm sorry, what were you saying? No, and it's just like that. I think in PEI there seems to be more of it. And again, certain pockets of our work seem to go in different areas at certain times. But that's a little bit of the split in PEI — between residential and commercial. Is it kind of 50/50 or is it — it's heavier, I think, on the industrial and commercial side for sure. But yeah. What about Cape Breton — how's how's

15:04the market there? Like, you know, people know that Cape Breton is busy now with the NSCC campus, the healthcare projects, the hospital. Does that necessarily mean that ALL-TECH is — you know, if contractors are busy there, then environmental companies such as this — by the nature of this work — would be busy as well? It definitely adds to the workload. But kind of following up to what Larry was saying — maybe the split — I'd say we do see a little bit more on the

15:31residential or one-off client kind of side of it, right? We definitely have a certain proportion of commercial in there for sure. But I think it does go back to education. You know, what does the public know? What do the contractors know? Are they aware of certain hazards? That all plays a role. And I think more people are getting educated — we are starting to see a little bit more requests for assessing hazardous materials and all those potential things that may impact your health. Yeah.

16:00I think that's the complexity of the task. Like, if there's a contractor that we're chatting with who's in a certain scope of work on the cladding side — well, everybody understands what that is. But then if you're a consultant environmental company like ALL-TECH — well, you know, one thing you're doing is educating people that are going to be on the sites about all these different materials and different procedures and things like that. And you have a team of people testing, the labs, and you have

16:29environmental professionals and project managers and your spec writing — and there's so many different angles and scenarios of ongoing workflow. Yeah, that you know, it can be hard for people to kind of grasp exactly what it is, with so many services too, right? And it comes back to education. Yeah, I think it's all about that. Yeah. Like, you could be involved with an architecture firm, like we were talking about earlier, and maybe doing some building code and spec writing on

17:00something — you know, with the foundation, building to avoid radon down the road. And kind of catching it upstream, like Brian was saying earlier. And just even to expand on the radon — it seems there's more education out west and in Ontario, but in recent years Health Canada has been pushing it. You may hear advertisements on the radio or even on TV where it seems more homeowners are starting to come up to speed on the potential hazards. And

17:31in turn we're getting spin-offs of more requests to do the testing, help out with mitigation. And I think Health Canada has stated that it's the second leading cause of lung cancer. That's — a lot of people don't know that. But until you come up to speed on it — tell us what radon is for our listeners that wouldn't have any idea. They've heard it but they don't really understand. It comes from the soil? Yeah, exactly. So, to boil it down, a quick summary:

17:55It's a gas that's basically the daughter product of the breakdown of uranium that can enter your home, usually through the basement, through small voids, cracks, that kind of thing. And as it breaks down and enters your body, it does have the potential to impact you in the sense of being carcinogenic. So it's something that you should definitely look into and test for if you have the means. And so — a bigger problem in older builds, or does it just depend on the quality and methods of construction?

18:26It's coming from anywhere the building's in contact with the ground, yeah. So it depends on construction — how tight the building envelope is — as well as a little bit of the overall geography of the area. So if you're not in an area that's laden or prone to have uranium deposits, well, you're likely at a lower risk of having radon in your home. But vice versa too — you could be in an area that has high uranium or radon gas, but if you have a poor quality foundation,

18:51a lot of cracks and voids, you could have problems there too. When it comes to other hazardous materials — asbestos is obviously a big one, and mercury, lead, and all these things — you guys have been doing this so long. If it's a public tender and it's a big retrofit, say, are you guys kind of looking at that building and saying, "Well, you know, that was built before the 1980s, when asbestos kind of tapered off as far as the government regulation

19:20and EPA and stuff" — and saying, "All that, we're going to have problems with this, this, and this"? Can you already tell, just from your intuition and those kinds of things, like you kind of know what's coming? Yeah, pretty much on the pipe, yeah. Yeah, and we usually tell people: if there's a building or home that was built between 1930 and the mid-80s to late-80s, you're going to — it's almost guaranteed there's going to be asbestos in it. Yeah. And some other

19:46hazards — lead will be there for sure. But yeah, basically — what are some other things? Yeah, just tell you a lot. What are some other big ones other than asbestos and lead? Like, is mercury pretty — yeah, I mean, it's something again in healthcare facilities — for certain things like that you will find equipment, and PCBs will be another one. Is that — and what are PCBs? Mostly found in electrical components and stuff? Yeah, I mean it was used in transformers years ago. Some

20:15of them are dry transformers now, but some of them — the fluids were filled with PCB oils. Lamp ballasts that are in all lights — it was in the lamp ballasts as well. So we've got to identify them mostly by serial number and by age to determine if they have PCBs as well. And when you're talking about industrial hygiene, like with the people occupying these spaces — are these all carcinogens? Like, are these all things that are going to cause

20:42certain kinds of diseases, right? Like, that's what the danger is with all these different hazardous materials. For the most part — well, yeah, like most — if you look at most — we call them controlled substances — they all have like limits that you can be exposed to for, like, an eight-hour shift or an hour. Okay. Yes. So this isn't just occupying the building after — this is during construction a lot of the time, or even the day-to-day operations of buildings and what people are doing inside the

21:09buildings for processes. Yeah. So we get called in sometimes during a process where they're making or manufacturing — like welding. So if you're welding, there's gases and everything being used, plus — what are you welding? If you're welding stainless, you can get hexavalent chromium being released into the air. So is your worker properly protected — the guy doing the welding? So this is where we get called in to do an assessment, like an ambient air assessment. Well, yeah, we do actually personal sampling on the workers. Oh really? We put sampling pumps on

21:37— we'll check for hazardous contaminants coming off the process. Okay. It could be a variety of different things — not just hexavalent chromium, it could be the flux they're using, or could be anything. Or even — well, nowadays most hazardous products that we see that were used at one time, like very carcinogenic chemicals, aren't being used. But yeah, some of the replacement products do have some nasty little hidden things in there. Yeah. And they'll have an SDS, or a material safety data sheet, that'll tell you what's in there.

22:09And sometimes the air quality may not be that pristine in the location — it's not drawing every note. So one way to confirm that is to do the sampling. And then, if we see elevated numbers, we would recommend the ventilation system, personal protective equipment on workers. And I think with OHS — like whether it's a contractor, a sub, or a GC, or whatever umbrella — it's so tough to have your mind wrapped around all the different aspects

22:39of health and safety. Yeah, for a company like ALL-TECH, to even get into the depths of all these different layers of materials. Yeah. Well, and it's funny because some people — you get this a lot — like, "Can you come in and check the air quality in my house?" Okay. Yeah. A homeowner or a lot of — but who's asking that? The welding shop? Is it the employer? It's usually employer-like. Usually it's probably complaint-driven. Someone has concerns. And like, I just mentioned the

23:08welding shop, but one of the other big ones around here, I guess, is silica, right? Yeah. Which is in concrete, like crystalline silica — yeah, and brick and stone — cutting it or drilling into it, right? Or finishing a building on the outside? It doesn't stay still. Oh really? Airborne silica, which is a known carcinogen. Okay. Yeah. So workers have to be protected. The building occupants have to be protected. So is that only used in older methods of stone and concrete construction, or like — you're not going to find

23:39clay brick, right? You'll find it in concrete, all your concrete. Yeah, yeah. So it's — at the right level, at a certain level. It's always at that level, but it's like — more or less the control procedure now. That's why you see a lot of cutting being done wet cuts. Okay, right. So you get a slurry. That's, yeah, exactly. But if you do dry cutting or grind it somehow, right, you're running into some issues. So that's — you know, that's another

24:05— I know here in Nova Scotia they have basically a set of rules for silica handling. Silica OHS regulations. And we're starting to see it throughout Atlantic Canada. It's another one of those things, right? Yeah, it's being pushed forward, like asbestos. By what governing body? Labour? Okay. Yeah, within each province they're kind of pushing it as, yeah, "Okay, asbestos bad, but this is also pretty bad." Right. So we have to — you were saying, Larry — you mentioned something earlier. You mentioned — I was

24:37asking you about the homeowners — you mentioned something about residential. I forget now where we were on there. Oh, I remember. Yeah, I think I was just going to say, if someone's saying, "Can you check my air quality?" Yeah — it's so much more broad than that. Like, when someone says, "Can you check my air quality?" I think, come in and do something — there's so many things. Tell me what's in the air — that's what the homeowner's thinking. Yeah. Well, that's good, we'll elaborate on that

24:59because I know there's people listening and they're homeowners and they're probably thinking the same thing. But they're not on the same page as your team, where there's these ambient air tests or however many different ways you can contaminate the air. So maybe just elaborate on that a little bit. Yeah. And maybe just kind of — I guess on that — you know, as a part of the — just because you have that hazardous material in your home doesn't mean you

25:31may be exposed, or could be, if it hasn't been disturbed, right? It's more on the disturbance — exactly. Like, for example, if you have asbestos-containing floor tiles — well, they're fine in your home. There's no requirement to remove them, or need to remove them, if they're in good shape. It's not until you begin disturbing them, cutting, grinding, creating a dust, where it becomes the true hazard. And likewise for mold and some of the PCBs, silica, like Brian was mentioning. So if the

25:59homeowner's requesting an air test, what kind of test is it that you're doing? And what accreditation, what gear do you need to do it? And could it be any number of a dozen different tests? Yeah, it definitely could. And I guess that's why it almost becomes like an investigative thing. And we have what I like to call CSI investigator tools — like we have infrared cameras and stuff like that to check for moisture. We have moisture meters. But

26:25then if you — you certainly don't want to say, "Well, we'll check all the stuff." It's like, how deep are your pockets, right? I mean, we can test everything, but it's like — a homeowner is different than the government. Yeah, exactly. And so it's like, what kind of problems or symptoms are you having? Are you seeing signs of anything? And so we kind of like to have a little bit of that investigative process first, and then streamline some kind of a sampling

26:49program for the occupants or the building owners or whoever. Yeah. When it comes to say remediation or abatement on commercial projects — a big thing any time there's a retrofit, whether it's mold or asbestos. So if it's a hotel, say, or another institutional building, maybe on a university campus, or any sort of commercial building, and there's a big crew there — say from EnviroBate, now Inflector, or any other company that provides those services — is a consultant like ALL-TECH always involved, overseeing that as a third

27:31party for testing, and on-site as well, for the methods of removal and abatement and stuff like that? Like, is that — are those some examples of projects that you would do? I don't think so? Nice. Yeah, yeah. It can vary too, like I say. It depends — each province has different regulations. They're all very similar. But for example, we might just be called to do a clearance air sample. Where some jobs we might be on for the client and doing inspections, doing visual

28:04inspections of the work area, checking their equipment, all that stuff. But there are minimum requirements, and then there's the stuff that's actually specified that we're doing as well, right? And that might vary too — if it's a government project it might be pretty buttoned up in that sense, and then maybe if it's a private development it's just whatever. Yeah. And you get more high-sensitivity areas like schools — they're very expensive and there's a lot more stringent stuff, and more sensitive because the traffic is

28:33children. And it's like — in that sense, yeah, your healthcare and liability too. Liability — yeah, it's a really big thing. I'm just going to give an example just to see if we could pull some threads — and I won't mention the name of the building. You know, I was involved in a project years ago — it was a hotel. And, you know, before — I know the one. Gotcha. Oh yeah, you're caught. Got a lawsuit coming here! Yeah. So there's a big retrofit, seven stories, probably 150 units. And

29:06they opened up one hole in one unit on the first floor and one on the seventh floor and said, "Oh, looks like everything's okay." Then, you know, six months later you're spending an extra however many million dollars to rebuild every fire-rated wall. And it was just supposed to be a little washroom renovation in 120 units, you know? So the owner ends up spending a lot more — three times as much, four times as much money. The contractor takes another year.

29:38You know — tell us, from your perspective, you're involved maybe in a project like that. You're going to recommend, "Let's open up a lot more spots here to figure out what's really going on." In that project there was asbestos, there was mold. They were sending tests off to — whether it was Stantec or WSP or you guys, I can't remember. And then you end up getting word every month that there's more and there's more and there's more. And the

30:07whole place is caked with it and you're building a whole new building by the end of it. Yeah. So that's just an example for perspective. But like, when you gentlemen hear that, you just want to pull your hair out. What do you think to yourself? Yeah, it starts — it starts with the building. Yeah, it starts with the building blocks, though. Like, if you're going to go in with a design like that, you need the groundwork. Like, you need to have a

30:32proper assessment done, right? And obviously they didn't have it done. What would that look like, then? What would the property assessment — well, you would go through — first of all you'd find out from, if you're working with the architect, "What's the end plan here? What's the goal?" Yeah, right. Like, "Oh, we're replacing every window" — and they don't even know what's behind the walls anymore. Okay. "We're replacing every window." Yes, every window's coming out. And then we're also doing bathroom renovations. Okay. Well, we need to know what's

31:02on the windows, what's behind the windows, what's in the walls behind the bathroom. So if you're taking all those items out, we need to know what's there before you start, so that at least you get a good picture of the building. And it could be — you know, depending on the size, but if it's that big, like you're saying, seven stories — you could have hundreds of samples of materials. Yeah, right. Same with paints and everything. And then you can sit down and say, "Okay, you

31:33found it in a certain percentage." And you know, sometimes you'll get buildings that were built in different wings, different ages. Yes. So you can go into this section or section A and everything's got asbestos in it — everything: floors, walls, ceilings. Yeah. And then you walk down the hall, you go through a fire-rated corridor — it's a different addition, it's only in certain areas. So then you could sit down and put a design together with the architect, knowing that you've got proper specifications. And then when that goes

32:03out to tender, everybody's comparing apples with apples. It's not like — because if you don't provide that information, sometimes you'll see these really crazy numbers. Of course — that's what I've been involved with for years. You'd see these numbers that just don't make sense. Why someone took it that low. And then other people — well, they're very busy, or they're high. And then you'll get other prices that are within the ballpark. And I'm just — for context, like, if a hotel owner

32:32is listening right now and he's got a situation like that and he has an architect involved — why not spend an extra, I mean just, whatever, $50,000? You have an environmental assessment done in conjunction with the architecture and design, as opposed to having a bunch of surprises for a whole year and just all kinds of change orders. Bad at work, yeah. Yeah, especially when you have tight timelines too, right? When you have certain schedules set out in your head and you start running into

33:01uncovered asbestos that could have been caught — and being proactive then — that can really — I mean, 120 units that aren't rented. Yeah, exactly. You know, the time schedule just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. Absolutely. Yeah. And on this particular building, you know, there was a lot of plaster, there was a lot of ceiling texture. Like, certain materials are more vulnerable, right? As far as asbestos or mold or, you know, like,

33:32so you're going to look at that too and say, "You know, we're going to have some problems here, whether or not it's all through or 70% or —" yeah. And some of these assessments are semi-destructive in nature. Some of them — again, if you're getting into major renovations, it should be more destructive testing where we're actually physically getting behind walls and checking behind. And again, mold — mold is the kind of thing where there are some limitations. Even if we're doing moisture readings on a wall, maybe there's no moisture there, but maybe

34:04there was previous water damage in that area and that's already caused the mold. So a moisture meter isn't going to tell you there's mold behind the wall — it's going to tell you it's a place where there could be potential. But there could be mold there that maybe happened previously. So you physically almost have to take pieces out of the wall to actually check, with borescopes and get in to have a closer look — for sure. And then are those data samples also going to

34:33ALL-TECH's lab locations and being tested? Some of them, some of them, yeah. How many lab locations — is there one in each province as well as an office or headquarters? Well, we have a variety of different resources that we draw upon, right? Like — for asbestos testing, we do have some labs set up. Some certain offices have it set up. But we also look at — because it can be pretty complex what you're testing for sometimes. Like we just talked about the lead and the

35:00paint — we obviously don't do the lead-in-paint analysis because it's — we send it to a third party lab, right, for liability. And you can also look at different types of materials besides the lead in the paint. So you can look at arsenic in the paint, mercury in the paint, right? So, you know, we do use in-house testing, but because it's so broad there's all kinds of different — little scary things that you can run into. You're trying to cover

35:27all your bases to make sure that the client is going to get a very in-depth report, right? But ALL-TECH does have some scientists on staff that do the lab testing. Yes, for some of this. And when we don't — I think a benefit we provide too is, when you do get those lab results back from the laboratory, they're not easy to read a lot of times. So we can kind of translate it into everyday English for the homeowner, or someone maybe not

35:55familiar with the environmental industry either. Give them some suggestions on how to deal with it. Any comments, Brian, on just the state of the market in New Brunswick in general, how it's been for you the last while? New Brunswick is a little different — everything is kind of spread out. Like I find everything in Nova Scotia, there's a lot of congestion around, like, the Halifax Peninsula, yeah. And before — I moved there in 2005, right? That was based out of the old Bedford office.

36:22Right. So I worked here for quite a few years before I moved to New Brunswick. Yeah, it's like — right now Moncton is booming. There's a lot of work going on, a lot of commercial work. Yeah. So we're starting to pick up some extra work in that area. And the state of the business in New Brunswick — it's expanding. Fredericton's starting to pick up quite a bit also. Saint John — yes, I'm in the Saint John office. Based out of the Saint John

36:48office. And it's always been busy — it's more of an industrial center. So we have Irving right across the road from us, the refinery, and there's just paper and — right. So you do have an ongoing relationship with Irving? Oh yes, we do, we do, we do. Yeah, work with just about everybody. Yeah, we've got some really good clients that we work with. And Larry — I mean, so I think it's pretty well known that PEI has been

37:14really, really busy the last few years, especially when it comes to commercial construction. Does that kind of correlate to your experience with ALL-TECH there in Charlottetown and throughout the province? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Again, I think we do a lot of work with government as well, but again a lot of private stuff. We're also doing a lot of pharmaceutical places, like for healthcare, as far as doing HEPA filter testing and biosafety cabinet testing for certifications in those facilities.

37:48And there's large operations like Biovector and stuff like that that have large operations that require — and we have a tech there that is at some of these places on a weekly basis. So is it facilities like that, that have these complex operations — are you kind of doing ongoing services with their building maintenance people, like just constantly making trips out for testing? Pretty much, yeah. It's like an ongoing thing, like a weekly thing. We're going in, and because they have stuff and we're there to respond on a daily

38:20basis, right? So if they need something done, we can have our technician go over, fix something that's kind of not working — or if they have filters that have to get changed, because some of the stuff, like, it's highly — you know, clean environments that they have to make sure and maintain their certification on. So we have to kind of help them in keeping that certification and the maintenance. That might be a good segue — just for context for our listeners too. Like,

38:46you know, for ALL-TECH Environmental in that case — you're working for a building owner, for the building maintenance professional, post construction while the building's operating. You know, what about — most of the time your services are being provided to building owners, whether it's a government-owned building or private-owned building or a residential home for a homeowner. What are some examples where you could be working with the general contractor under a GC? Like, you do have that avenue sometimes as well, right?

39:16I'd say that might even go more towards the environmental site assessments, or if they uncover contamination on a property where they need — you know, maybe there was a past oil spill that needs to be cleaned up. Whether maybe you have a GC that's putting in a foundation, they're digging a hole, they come across something that looks suspicious. "This looks suspicious." Yeah, that's a good way to put it, Brian. And they're not familiar with the environmental industry, so they'll call us in to basically guide the

39:44relationship. Some of these GCs — with a good relationship, they're going to give you a call. And, you know, "We'll need you to come down, bunch of work here." Or they'll run into a situation where they're doing a renovation and all of a sudden they open up something and they find something they never knew was there. Yeah, it just doesn't look right. Yeah. They'll stop what they're doing, give us a call, we'll go in and do some testing for them, give them an

40:07in-depth report, what's there, help them out. If they need to, you know, make recommendations. If they need somebody — if they don't have somebody on their call list, who are they going to call, right, if we find something? I feel like there must be a lot of governing bodies that you're kind of subject to in a lot of the work you're carrying out. Is there one or two main ones — let's say federal and provincial — two big ones? Like, as far as — like Brian said,

40:35labour and the Department of Environment. So those are a couple of big ones, right? And then there are other standards from different organizations, like ASHRAE or — yeah, exactly. So lots of governance. And yeah, lots of paper trail. Oh yeah. And a lot of the testing that we do, we follow standards. Like, we usually follow CSA — CSA has a lot of health and safety standards. But for testing materials we'll follow a lot of NIOSH standards. You can find those from the Centers for Disease

41:06Control. Yeah. And any kind of chemical that you want to test for, they mostly would have a procedure for how to do it, in conjunction with some of our labs. And talking to — say if it's occupational hygiene, we'll talk to Orvin, who is our Certified Industrial Hygienist. You can get confirmation of what we should really do, just to protect us. Yes — and protect the building owner, or maybe the general contractor, right? At the end of the day. Yeah. And then speaking of paper trail — I think Larry

41:35you mentioned earlier, after Fiona, things were pretty busy with a lot of post-storm leaks and things like that. And with the hurricane damage, you know, you're going to have mold problems. And a company like ALL-TECH would work kind of closely with other companies like First On-Site or something. And you have insurance involved, and so, you know, no one's going to move on anything until you guys show up, do your testing, have everything documented. Exactly — exactly. Like, there are liabilities for

42:01— like I say, these contractors that are going in there. If they start ripping something out and they don't know what it is, so they want to protect themselves and the homeowners or business owners — because they can open themselves up to liability of tearing out mold or tearing out asbestos products. "Well, why didn't anybody tell us this?" Right. And now you have a homeowner who's up in arms. Yeah, building owners. And so yeah, it's all due

42:31diligence. And yeah, yeah. And they know that, and they just won't touch it, which is the proper thing to do. You don't want to subject anyone to that. Yeah. They know better at this point in the game. Yeah. Or they're supposed to. Yeah. And so there's still some out there that don't — just get ripping and tearing. Yeah, pretty eager. We were saying earlier that just the nature of the services that you provide and some of the buildings that you've worked on

42:58in the past over the years — kind of some good material for, you know, whether you can mention them or not, some good stories of past projects that you worked on. Kind of interesting stuff. And Larry, you were mentioning one — PEI? Was it the Irving Whale? Well, actually it was here in Halifax. Oh, okay, right. So you were here. Yeah, I'm going to say it was maybe about 18 years ago, maybe somewhere in that area. So they raised the Irving Whale

43:28here in Halifax, pulled it up to the harbour. And so when they did, they had to — as wet as it was — remove all the asbestos that was on board. So our company was involved in managing the recovery — not the recovery of the ship, but actually the hazardous materials and that part of it. So from the bowels of the ship, like from the interior? Yeah, like the shipbuilding industry was a huge asbestos industry, and it was put into a lot of

43:58ships — still to this day, but yeah. So that was kind of an interesting job. Yeah. Halifax Stanfield International Airport — that was another one that went for years. Well, yeah, different parts of the airport. Like the whole airport, because they've done quite a bit of work. Yeah, they're almost all sprayed — spray fireproofing — that was all, especially the asbestos-containing material throughout that airport. And that's like an intumescent spray? Yeah, all right, an actual fire-rated material. Yeah, right. Okay, yeah, throughout the whole complex was all under — more

44:30like a paint? No, it's actually like a fiber. Okay, okay, yeah, that's right. Cue-Deck? And that's full of — what's in it? It was an asbestos product. Yeah, yeah. And nasty stuff to work with and take out. But yeah, it was a big — that was like three years, I think. They were there three-year project. Yeah, yeah. It's one of the ones I kind of started with. So who's handling all that — like whatever the contract, the remediation — and for my — what I remember in that project,

44:59I think there were three or four different contractors they went through just to get it done. Yeah, yeah. And so would you have one or two, three guys kind of monitoring that from ALL-TECH, or a project manager just kind of overseeing everything? Exactly, on a daily basis. Yeah, there every day, yeah, for a year or more. Yeah, because I mean, the airport was still operational. So in doing that, you have to ensure that everyone in there is safe and that

45:23there's nothing getting outside of that work area that they're working in. So does that mean you're tarped off that section with negative air and the whole works? Exactly, yeah. Yeah. Any other projects come to mind over the years? I'm sure there's lots of stories — some of them you can't tell, of course. That's right. I'd be buried somewhere. So I've got all kinds of them, I don't even know — I wouldn't know where to start. Anything come to mind over — well, you mentioned the first job. Yeah, I

45:51was going to touch on that — that was a really interesting one. That's what, 12 years ago now? Yeah, going back probably about 10 years ago when that finished up. So yeah, when I first came out of university, that's where I actually started my career. But yeah, it was such a large-scale project. Like, those don't come by every day, where we're tackling hazardous materials — and I'll say tar and hydrocarbons, PCBs — that were deposited over 100 years from Sydney

46:16Steel operations, right? So there was so much — it was really interesting to see the remediation tactics and the different engineering protocols and controls that they implemented throughout the project. Our role was to provide air monitoring services at the fence line, as well as ambient stations scattered throughout Sydney. So we would provide information to the contractor who was working inside the fence line on whether or not the emissions were escaping — what we call fugitive emissions — from the site. So both dust as well as odors and volatile

46:49organic compounds. So we would help give them feedback if they were approaching certain action limits or regulatory limits. Then they may have to adjust the way they're handling the material or doing the cleanup. So it was really interesting. Yeah, yeah, it sounds very interesting. Is there any kind of frontier kind of things that you see now, going to change into the future? Or, you know, more awareness — I know there's so many services you mentioned. You know, the silica in the concrete where

47:20it's like, yeah, asbestos is a problem but so is this. Is there anything kind of coming to the surface now that people are more aware of that they weren't before? Well, you can see Phase Environmental Site Assessments have really kind of — Phase 1, 2, and 3 — is that yeah, essentially? And I guess you guys can probably speak to that as well. That's picked up in the last, I'll say, five, six years. So, you know, maybe just for your listeners — yeah, the phased

47:42approaches. You know, Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3. And a little bit of background: the Phase 1 is essentially doing a bit of a historical review of the property, visiting the property, and seeing if there's potential for issues to exist on site. So potential — oil, you know, any form of contamination. If that is identified, you may proceed to the Phase 2 portion where we go on site and confirm there are concentrations exceeding certain limits and guidelines. So for

48:13example, I'll pick on hydrocarbons again. If there was an underground storage tank that we identified in the Phase 1, we may go in the Phase 2 and assess to see if there was any leakage that happened. And if there was, we could proceed to the Phase 3 where we're essentially delineating the scope or the size of that leak. And then we provide that information back to the — I'll say homeowner, property owner, or maybe in this case could be a future property owner. So someone might be

48:40looking at purchasing the property and you would definitely want to know or assess, "What am I walking into?" Because once you pull the trigger and buy that property, it becomes your problem. Well, this is a proactive — yes, a lot more data and logging — exactly. And we're seeing banks and financial institutions starting to push that as well, because that's a big liability on their end. If they ultimately inherit that mess — you buy the property for a million dollars but you've got three million dollars — yeah, that's not

49:10— that's not a good business model. No, no. Banks know that. Yeah, it sounds awful. And has ALL-TECH done some work at the wastewater treatment facilities here in HRM, or in other provinces? Like, water testing — or maybe not in that — yeah, the water testing? Yeah, we do water testing. I know some of my colleagues in the Dartmouth branch have completed some water testing throughout HRM. Currently we do some what we call chlorine residual testing on the

49:40current Marconi Campus here in Sydney. So essentially we're checking to make sure there's enough chlorine in the system to kill any bacteria that may cause problems for you. Yeah. Yeah, right. Any anything else you guys — that we didn't get to, or that you wanted to mention on behalf of the company? It's been a great conversation. I'm sure we could continue. It's been at least an hour and a bit. So we'll wrap up, but

50:08yeah, I mean, this is a lot of technical information. You can do so much — there's so many layers to these services. And very interesting for any business owner, any building owner, you know, that's tuning in. Yeah. And I guess maybe one thing just to mention there too — we do provide training services. So if you're not familiar with a lot of these — we have all the training courses, all the issues, yeah. We provide in-

50:33house training. You know, we can come to you and provide that. And that's on an ongoing basis, right? Yeah, exactly. On the website you can check it out. But mostly, employees of contracting companies that are working on job sites are taking these courses. Or you're a building owner, you say you've got some facilities — okay, right, we do provide training for that too. Building maintenance professionals, all the building maintenance sessions, right? Yeah, just get — make sure to keep them

50:56all in compliance. Yeah, yeah. Because Melanie's pretty engaged with the people over at Bowman as well — exactly, very much, yeah. That's a big one for you guys. And, like, I was just going to follow up with what you said, Dan — as far as the layers we have — to this day I've been with the company for 29 years and there are still family members that say, "What is it you do again?" Because it is very broad. But it's basically anything occupational health, safety, and environmental. That's the umbrella. Yeah, day to day it could change.

51:27Yeah, no, and that's part of, you know, part of the goal of our show — is to shed light on all the different aspects of commercial, institutional construction. And this is just another example of what it's like — a kind of a glance or perspective into ALL-TECH. And you know, this is just a short, quick glimpse of all the different things that you deal with on a daily basis. And

51:54it's endless, and we only cover just the verge of it. Very interesting. And maybe, you know, just to finish out — I know Terry, Terry Smith, the president. We were talking earlier in the week and he thought it'd be a good idea — you know, we have a lot of upper management on the show, CEOs and owners and stuff — and he kind of wanted to take a step back and let you guys do the talking

52:20and represent the company. And I just thought that was kind of a testament to his character. But I wanted to mention that about Terry. Yeah. You know, I don't know him that well — obviously you guys do. But seems like a great business owner, and ALL-TECH obviously has a great name in the city. So yes, thank you guys again for doing this. Real treat. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah.

52:48Awesome, yeah. Cheers. This episode is brought to you by Cook Insurance, your trusted insurance broker in Atlantic Canada for 50 years. Insurance is complex, and the Cook team focuses on delivering comprehensive solutions for your construction needs, including builders risk, wrap-up liability, performance bonds, and project-specific construction. A Navacord partner since 2020, Cook is one of the largest construction brokers in Canada and offers national strength with a local touch. Whatever your insurance needs are, Cook has you covered. We would like to take this time to thank a long-

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