Environmental Works: Springfield-based company adds Kansas City location

by Maria Hoover

Inside Business Editor

mhoover@sbj.net

Environmental Works Inc. opened a Kansas City office in October to serve clients in western Missouri and eastern Kansas.

"We had some existing clients in the Kansas City area. Having an office in that area will be a good strategic location to not only serve those clients but offer our services to other potential new clients," said Environmental Works President Robin Melton.

The company, which was named the 2002 W. Curtis Strube Small Business of the Year by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, specializes in helping companies with environmental regulations. Environmental Works Inc.'s services range from subsurface investigations to due-diligence assessments, emergency response and site investigations.

Kansas City operations

"The same kind of needs exist in Kansas City as (exist) in Springfield," Melton said. "One of our focuses, though, is on the rail industry, and the (Kansas City) office is part of that goal, or focus, for us."

She noted that there are corporate rail offices in Kansas City and Nebraska, where Environmental Works also has clients.

"So it's a little closer from a geography standpoint," she said.

Paul Dial heads Environmental Works' Kansas City office. Dial relocated to Kansas City from the company's Springfield headquarters.

Dial earned his master's degree in chemistry and graduated magna cum laude from Southwest Missouri State University in 1996.

During his time with the company, he has specialized in environmental projects for the railroad industry, and he's also experienced in wastewater and stormwater management, storage-tank compliance and helping clients with Clean Air Act issues.

The Kansas City office has two other employees a part-time administrative assistant and a full-time field supervisor.

"The field supervisor's primary job is maintenance on an industrial wastewater treatment plant," Melton said.

Specific goals for the Kansas City office's first year include "increasing our name recognition and providing better service to our existing clients in that area."

Client base

Environmental Works has 30 employees at its Springfield headquarters, Melton said.

As for the company's service area, Melton said, "We really cover several states throughout the Midwest, and through ourselves or a network of subcontractors, have done work all throughout the U.S. We might have a client who is comfortable working with us, but they have a site in Arizona. Well, we may find a subcontractor in Arizona and then supervise them, either remotely or we might send somebody out there."

Changing demands

Melton said the environmental services industry continues to evolve and change, and there are "areas of business that we used to do a lot of work in that have atrophied, whereas there are other areas of business that are growing."

As for areas that have atrophied, Melton said, "In the mid-(1990s), there was a lot of underground storage tank removal going on. And that, because of regulatory deadlines, has changed. There was a deadline in 1998 and a lot of people tried to get things done by then, and some of them were late so that trickled on until about 2000."

An area of the industry in which there's growth especially in Missouri Melton said, is risk-based corrective action "as Missouri moves toward a different type of cleanup standards."

Cleanup of industrial properties is a good example of risk-based corrective action, Melton said. What's happening, she said, is that the state is requiring more up-front assessments to determine risks.

"Where before there were cleanup levels that were just basically published cleanup levels, now you can go in and say, Well, let's evaluate what the risks really are of an exposure. What are the pathways; what are the receptors; what's the land use,'" Melton said. "And perhaps you can leave more contaminants in place because you can show they really don't pose any risk. For example, a concentration of arsenic in the soil at nine feet deep, is it really going to hurt anybody as long as you don't have groundwater or people in contact with it?"

Additional expansion of Environmental Works might be considered once the Kansas City office is well established, but Melton said there are no immediate plans for other additional locations.