OCEAN CITY – Members of Ocean City’s Green Team met with a local exterior construction company this week to discuss potential solutions to pollution caused by Exterior Insulating Finishing Systems (EIFS).
In a committee meeting Wednesday, Gail Blazer, environmental engineer for the town, addressed issues regarding the manner in which exterior insulation is applied and its impacts on the environment. Blazer said the initial conversation will lay groundwork for future discussions between the town and the exterior construction industry.
“I want to make sure we are all at the table,” she said. “I want to make sure you know the issues we’ve been having with it and what our next steps are.”
In the current installation process, construction workers who apply the insulation are tasked with sanding the material to smoothing the surface. Remnants that fall from the walls are either vacuumed or caught with netting material laid on the ground.
“It broadcasts pellets of Styrofoam that could make it look like it’s snowing in July,” she said.
According to Blazer, the goal is to establish protocols to reduce the amount of foam-like material that escapes the construction site.
“If we make you do it, we need to make everyone do it,” she told industry workers present at the meeting.
Blazer said the town can address and enforce these issues by outlining the protocols and warnings in EIFS permit applications, establishing a no-tolerance policy for violating companies.
“That is how I see it happening,” she said. “It should be outlined upfront so it is consistent.”
Officials with All States Construction Company, the only industry member present at the meeting, agreed with Blazer that the issue could be addressed, but added that detailed requirements should be discussed before enforcing new rules.
Michael Coolidge, vice president of All States, said exterior insulation is an energy code requirement, and exterior siding companies are required to both apply and capture insulation products, regardless of which siding is used on a project site.
Currently, vacuums and tenting capture 80 to 90 percent of particulates that fall, according to Coolidge. But he added that the light-weight product can’t always be contained. Chris Wolfe, All States’ sales and operations manager present at the meeting, added that the insulation is considered a green product by manufacturers.
“It’s used in potting soil and the Federal Highway Administration uses it when they are doing backfills because it is a lighter material than soil,” Wolfe said. “They are putting it in the ground.”
Blazer said she doesn’t take issue with its composition, but she does not want it to end up in the storm drains.
In the meeting, both Green Team and All States began discussing alternatives to the current application system.
Coolidge said companies could cover storm grates, apply heavier foam, or change tenting systems that would require full enclosure. Yet he added that some material will continue to escape.
“It’s impossible to catch everything,” he said.
Bill Neville, Ocean City’s planning and community development director, addressed other concerns with the suggested permit and enforcement process.
“I think we are going to have possibly a little bit of a code revision to deal with and a separate permit we may want to create,” he said. “That involves establishing a fee and going to talk to the council about that to get it established.1 The other thing we need to solve is, from our side, is who is going to enforce it. Right now, anything that happens on the site is pretty much our building department. Once it goes into the street, our engineering department starts jumping all over it and then it gets into the storm drain and the state agencies start to get involved.”
At the end of the discussion, Blazer, All States officials and Neville agreed to hash out details and continue discussions before the summer season approached.
“We are not trying to put them out of business,” Blazer said. “We are trying to work together. I don’t want to be going fist to cuffs with them all the time. That’s why we have it spelled out here. That way everyone is on the same playing field.”
