A John Deere 270D with 60-ft/-long reach working at a demolition site.
Environmental Services Inc. (ESI) is a full-service environmental contractor providing planned and emergency services to private customers and governmental agencies throughout southern New England.
Founded in 1991, it is the largest privately held environmental services company in the area, with a staff of more than 70 employees, including project managers, supervisors, compliance and regulatory personnel, equipment operators, craftsmen, field technicians with decades of experience in emergency response and remediation, hazardous waste management and backgrounds in the petroleum and construction industries. Billy Mitchell, one of the founding principals of ESI, is still involved with the day-to-day operations as general manager. He is highly respected in the industry.
ESI's staff of professionals provides continuity throughout every stage of environmental challenges, large or small.
According to Mitchell, "When the company got its start in 1991, the company was primarily focused on tank removals, contaminated soil cleanup and chemical spills. Over the last several decades, the company has experienced tremendous growth and has diversified into a wide variety of environmental related service areas."
Today, the company responds to all types of emergency environmental issues, including but not limited to over-the-road truck spills, train derailments, PFAS release due to fires and drug labs that involve hazardous materials. ESI even has a marine division to take care of contaminated water issues.
The company's demolition team is fully equipped to take down buildings and facilities of any size and deal with contamination issues such as asbestos in the process.
ESI also offers site services that include contaminated soil transportation and disposal, portable toilets, frac tanks, as well as roll-off services.
ESI has a 24,000 sq. ft. office, warehouse and maintenance facility in South Windsor, Conn., and the company is permitted in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont for hazardous waste transportation and spill response.
For several of its key divisions, earth moving construction equipment is a significant tool. Contaminated soil cleanup and tank removal, as well as demolition work, incorporate the use of heavy iron. In addition, ESI is an approved contractor for multiple states and relies on its heavy equipment to respond to highway incidents.
Oftentimes, vehicles have left the highway completely and tumbled over embankments and emptied their load. In such a case, ESI not only has to have the means to pull these vehicles back up to the highway to be transported away from the scene, but it also must be equipped to excavate and remove the impacted materials from the site.
Once the scene has been cleaned up, ESI has to haul in fill or whatever other organic materials are needed to restore the site to its original condition. Sometimes environmental cleanup projects come in some pretty unexpected places, including cleaning up after an airplane crash at a local airport.
ESI's growth over the past 30 years has been phenomenal and with ever-changing environmental regulations, ESI has adapted and diversified its operations to be able to respond and complete projects in a timely and effective manner.
Anyone who has spent any time with Billy Mitchell or has seen any of ESI's cleanup projects is acutely aware that their construction equipment brand of choice is John Deere, which they obtain from The W.I. Clark Company.
The list of John Deere equipment in ESI's fleet includes JD 310 and JD 410 tractor loader backhoes; JD 544J and JD 644J loaders; JD 270D excavator with a long front and 60-in. ditching bucket; JD 317G tracked loader; several JD 50G mini-excavators; JD 650H dozer; and a JD 130G excavator.
Greg Hulbert, of The W.I. Clark Company, is Mitchell's sales rep and has been since the start of the company's relationship with John Deere. The service that ESI has received from Hulbert and the service department at The W.I. Clark Company, and the overall reliability of the John Deere product, is what has kept ESI loyal to The W.I. Clark Company.
According to Mitchell, "W.I. Clark knows how customers should be treated and the word ‘no' is not in their vocabulary. In our business we are on all 24 hours a day 7 days a week and we have to work with suppliers that keep the same hours. Not long ago we called W.I. Clark at 4:30 in the afternoon on a Friday. We needed a part that was somewhat obscure and due to supply chain issues was not available. W.I. Clark took the part from one of the machines in their own fleet and got it to me within hours. That type of service reinforces to me how much they understand how critical their equipment is to our business.
"That was an unusual scenario, not having the part in inventory. Through the entire pandemic it was the only time they didn't have a part that we needed. But that situation demonstrated their ‘go to' attitude. Reliability from the equipment is critical. In emergency situations we can be dispatched hundreds of miles in the middle of the night. We have to know when we get there that the equipment that we have brought is going to be reliable and up to the task at hand.
"Over the years we have worked with Greg Hulbert and the people at W.I. Clark to consistently match up the right equipment to meet our varied needs and it is a relationship that we can count on going into the future."
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