BIA is a proud supporter of the The Lehigh County Conservation District and Wildlands Conservancy's High School Envirothon

The Lehigh County Conservation District and Wildlands Conservancy hosted the 25th annual Lehigh County High School Envirothon at the Pool Wildlife Sanctuary in Emmaus on Tuesday, April 30, 2013.

Here are several links to all the great activity that day.

Lehigh County students put their nature knowledge to the test

http://www.wfmz.com/news/news-regional-lehighvalley/lehigh-county-students-put-their-nature-knowledge-to-the-test/-/132502/19957644/-/wybp8ez/-/index.html

 

Collection of photos from the Envirothon

http://topics.lehighvalleylive.com/tag/24th%20annual%20lehigh%20county%20envirothon/photos.html

 

160 Students Participate in 2-day Envirothon Competition

http://emmaus.patch.com/announcements/160-local-middle-school-high-school-students-participate-in-two-day-2013-envirothon-competition-program

BIA Named as 2013 Top Work Place

Barry Isett & Associates (BIA), a multi-discipline engineering firm headquartered in Allentown, PA, is pleased to announce that the company has been named among The Morning Call Top Workplaces.

The Morning Call is a daily newspaper that serves the greater Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metro area. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the Call distributes more than 106,000 papers daily with a Sunday circulation in excess of 122,000.

Five hundred Lehigh Valley companies with 50 employees or more were invited to participate in a survey conducted by WorkplaceDynamics, LLP, a leading research firm on organizational health and employee engagement. Seventy-five of BIA’s 100 associates elected to take the survey, which measured workplace satisfaction and organizational health. The tabulation of data placed BIA among the top 30 workplaces, with special honors accorded for Work/Life Flexibility. According to a four-year study conducted by WorkplaceDynamics, companies with high scores for organizational health outperform the Standard and Poor’s500 index by 15% a year.

“This honor is a reflection of the values promoted by Barry and Shirley Isett,” says company president Kevin T. Campbell. “Founded by Barry in 1977, the company is transitioning ownership to associate-shareholders and an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). We have more flexibility than companies whose driving force is achieving only bottom-line profits for shareholders. We value and encourage the professionalism and excellence of our staff members, but we also understand there are times when personal concerns must come first. A company founded by a family understands family values, and lives them every day.”

BIA’s president, Kevin Campbell, HR manager Kimberli Kyra, senior project manager, Ryan Kern, and marketing manager, Francee Fuller accepted the 2013 Top Workplace award at the February 27th celebration at Miller Symphony Hall, Allentown. A special section on the program appears in the March 3rd print edition of the Morning Call and on-line at http://www.mcall.com/business/topworkplaces/

Heating Oil Tanks. Out of Sight + Out of Mind = Danger

DEP installed booms and wide pads in a storm drain catch home heating oil before it flows downstream. PHOTO BY ED BAILEY The start of winter means that heating oil season is in full swing.  Whether the oil is stored in an Aboveground Storage Tank (AST) or an Underground Storage Tank (UST), a spill can mean big headaches and high clean-up costs.  Imagine the surprise of the adjuster who just found out that the property owner, who couldn’t even live in their house due to fire damage, was now being cited by the Department of Environmental Protection for violations of the federal Clean Stream Law.  A release of heating oil from the damaged and unoccupied property had created a slick on a nearby stream. 

The contractor renovating the fire damage to the house had a piece of timber/lumber fall through the missing first floor into the basement.  The timber then struck the valve to the heating oil tank, sheering it clean off.  This permitted the heating oil AST in the basement to drain onto the concrete floor.  Unbeknownst to the contractor the basement had a floor drain that day-lighted to an open swale between the house and the street.  The swale also drained spring water from further up the street and always had flowing water.  The oil exited the drain pipe, flowed into this swale and several other swales and eventually ended up in the local creek.  When a resident spotted the sheen on the creek, the County Emergency Management was contacted, who in turn informed the DEP. 

The county emergency officials followed the sheen upstream to the house in question.  As soon as BIA received the call we headed for the site, and while reroute contacted an emergency response firm, who met us at there.  The tank was already emptied by the time that we arrived; however, oil absorbent socks were used to stop any further discharge from the drain pipe.  A series of booms and absorbent pads were used to line the impacted swales and to prevent the oil from moving further downstream.  These quick actions were well lauded by the County and DEP and were attributed with limiting the impact of the release.

Because the swales contained flowing water there were limited oil impacts to the soils along its path.  Most of the impacts were limited to the edge of the swale and BIA demonstrated that these impacts were limited to the upper few inches.  The soil removed remediating this site was measured in 55-gallon drums as opposed to cubic yards or tons.  The entire project was completed in less than three months and the DEP closed the case with no encumbrance, after BIA demonstrated that the soils met the Statewide Health Standards. 

Fun at the Elmwood Park Zoo

Elmwood Park Zoo is 16 acres of family-friendly fun, featuring  everything froDignitaries at the groundbreaking sported BIA hardhatsm jaguars, cougars, wolves,  flamingos, alpacas, bison, bald eagles, and ponies.  This popular Norristown destination was in great need of additional on-site  parking and was successful in obtaining grants from both the Redevelopment Authority of Montgomery County and State Community Revitalization program.  The  Zoo retained Barry Isett and Associates to prepare the construction plans and provide construction oversight for a parking lot expansion that  broke ground over the summer. The project included new ramps to the entrance building and parking, and seeded bio-swales with underdrains for improved stormwater management.  The new space accommodates 158 cars and eight buses, bringing the total vehicle count to 318. Bryan Smith, RLA, ASLA lead the design team while Rich Fain, CSI CCA provided construction services. 

Guiding the Next Generation of Engineers

Brandon Trate, P.G. and Chris Kotch, P.G. met with a geology class at Brandon’s alma mater, Kutztown University. In addition to discussing the environmental projects they encounter, they talked about the need for undergraduates to complement their technical studies with courses in business and marketing. The pair received a resounding THANK YOU from the professor and students.

Josh Lutton, PE, LEED AP and Mike Dean, EIT, MEP Department joined forces with Tim Sisock, CSI, CDT from Construction Services to give a class of 18 Lafayette College engineering students an overview of project design and management, drawing examples from their work at BIA. Topics included a discussion about Building Information Modeling (BIM) software and an introduction to basic mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems.