Eleven Phase I Environmental Assessments Conducted To Support Major Business Transaction
Teaming with Pittsburgh-based law firm Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, Environmental Standards assisted Sapa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwegian ORKLA ASA, in the recent acquisition of Indalex Aluminum (Indalex). Environmental Standards, the environmental consultant for the transaction, conducted 11 Environmental Site Assessments (ESAs) within a 5-week period.
The acquisition of Indalex will strengthen Sapa’s North American business. With networked facilities coast-to-coast in North America, Indalex supplies extruded aluminum solutions around the world. Sapa entered into an asset purchase agreement with the US aluminum extrusion company for the purchase of substantially all of Indalex’s assets in the US and Canada. Under the agreement, Sapa acquired Indalex’s 10 active plants (six in the US and four in Canada) with 29 presses and a total capacity of about 315,000 tons per year. Indalex’s sales in 2008 were about 200,000 tons, which represented sales of just above $900 million. Indalex has about 1,400 employees.
The purchase represented an underlying enterprise value of approximately $125 million for the business. The transaction allows Sapa to improve its geographical presence in North America, including an introduction into the Canadian region. Also, Sapa will be better positioned to service customers through improved painting, anodizing, and fabrication capabilities.
In addition, Sapa will now be able to optimize customer value through the combined knowledge, experience, and technical competence of the two companies. The combination has a significant potential of realizing cost synergies through plant restructuring and cost improvements in procurement, logistics, and shared services. The new company will have the ability to further develop new end-use applications in North America, thereby benefiting the customers and the extrusion industry as a whole.
“The agreement demonstrates Orkla’s and Sapa’s commitment to the North American extrusion market. Indalex is an excellent company with a long history in the industry. Combining the two companies will provide a wider product range and better geographic coverage than either company has alone. We will be able to offer our customers a range of products and services that is truly unique,” according to Jack Miller, Business Area President Sapa Profiles North America.
The agreement is part of a motion filed with the bankruptcy court in Delaware, along with sale and bid procedures, pursuant to Section 363 of the United States Bankruptcy Code. Final approval of Sapa’s agreement was announced at the end of July.
Sapa is the largest aluminum profiles producer in the world. The Sapa Group develops, manufactures, and markets value-added profiles, profile-based building systems, and heat exchanger strips in light-weight material aluminum. Sapa, which is divided into three business areas (Sapa Profiles, Sapa Building System, and Sapa Heat Transfer), is represented in Europe, North America, and Asia. The business concept is built on close cooperation with customers. Sapa is the leading company in its field of operation and has customers in the building, transport, engineering, telecom, and home and office industries. The Sapa Group has 12,000 employees world wide.
Radionuclides - When Total Metals May Not Be Total
 During environmental investigations, investigators occasionally include various radionuclides in the analytical suite for a project. Sometimes radionuclides can be present as naturally occurring radioactive materials and, in other cases, the radionuclides are anthropogenic. Like many analytes, radionuclides can be determined in environmental media by more than one analytical technique. Data users should understand the benefits and disadvantages of each technique and be aware that terminology can be deceiving.
Consider the analysis for total uranium and thorium, which can be performed by ICP/MS methods or isotopically by alpha spectroscopy. For total uranium, ICP/MS is a very sensitive technique for U-235 and U-238; however, ICP/MS cannot detect U-233, U-234, and U-236 or differentiate among the three. Alpha spectroscopy is the preferred technique for determining U-234, U-235, and U-238; typically, if U-233 or U-236 is detected by alpha spectroscopy, quantitation of the isotope is summed with U-234 or U-235, respectively.
Similarly for thorium, only Th-232 can be detected using ICP/MS because the specific activities unique to Th-230 and Th-228 are not detectable by ICP/MS. If the objective is to determine total thorium, alpha spectroscopy is, therefore, the only option. Essentially, ICP/MS is an extremely sensitive technique for Th-232 analysis and is a very good method for Th-232, but not a good method for total thorium.
Environmental Standards chemistry/quality assurance, geosciences, and information technologies staffs are providing site-wide quality assurance oversight for several high-profile projects on the East Coast, the West Coast, and the Northwest. For more information, contact Technical Director of Chemistry Rock J. Vitale, CEAC, CPC, at 610-935-5577.
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PCE-contaminated media may be regulated as a listed hazardous waste because contaminated environmental media are subject to regulation when the media contain hazardous waste. Generally, US EPA considers contaminated media to contain hazardous waste when it exhibits a characteristic of hazardous waste or is contaminated with concentrations of hazardous constituents from listed hazardous wastes that are above health-based levels (Management of Remediation Waste Under RCRA, EPA530-F-98-026). In addition, spent PCE used in dry cleaning is classified as “F002” (hazardous waste code) when the spent solvent formulation meets the 10%-criterion (by volume) in the listing (Call Center Monthly Report Question; October 1992, RCRA Online #13565). Contaminated media that contain spent PCE meeting the F002 listing description in §261.31 are, therefore, regulated as F002.