Remediation of hazardous materials is not construction work – it is HAZMAT work. Our primary mission is to ensure that each of our projects proceeds safely and legally.
HMS Inc.’s clients depend on our decades of hazardous materials experience and knowledge to protect them from lawsuits. Even the best renovation and demolition contractors frequently misunderstand the legal and health hazards they encounter. We show them what’s necessary for a safe, clean, legal job site.
HMS, Inc.’s primary responsibility is to protect the long-term liability of our renovation, demolition, and maintenance clients with respect to handling hazardous materials. Our approach to achieve this is to help general contractors understand the hazards they may encounter, advise them on how to safely do the activities which they can legally conduct, and let them know when they need to call in a remediation contractor. This helps assure projects are not delayed unexpectedly by a contractor who unwittingly contaminates a work site, shutting it down, which will negatively affect project calendars and budgets.
Many contractors mistakenly believe that as long as they do not get cited during a project, they have escaped hazardous materials liability. When asbestos is involved, the liability lasts twenty to forty years. General Contractors that are in business today are being sued by sub-contractors that worked for them in the late 1970’s and 1980’s, and the same is true for building owners. There is no way for a building owner or anyone else involved in the project to transfer this liability. Even contractor formats such as lease-lease back and design/build do not transfer the liability associated with the handling of hazardous materials. To protect your liability you must assure projects are conducted safely, and document that the workers, building occupants, and environment in general were appropriately protected for the length of the project.
With our training courses, we use not only the applicable regulations, but also our 30 plus years experience in the field. We use interactive training techniques which involve every person attending the class. We infuse our training classes with case studies, a little humor, and the knowledge that regulations cannot be followed one hundred percent to the letter of the law one hundred percent of the time. HMS, Inc. provides real life training as opposed to training based strictly on “the book.”