Thread: Abandoned Modesto building's collapse doesn't stop metal sca

Abandoned Modesto building's collapse doesn't stop metal scavengers


MODESTO -- Metal scavengers hauled off steel support beams, causing the roof to collapse at an abandoned industrial building in north Modesto. But that hasn't stopped the unauthorized dismantling of the 125,000-square-foot Indalex aluminum manufacturing plant.

While the toxic chemicals, contaminated air and treacherous footing hasn't deterred looters, firefighters and ambulance crews are being ordered to stay outside.

Stanislaus County's Board of Supervisors Tuesday night discussed options for declaring the complex a "public hazard" so it can be demolished.

That could cost taxpayers about $250,000 because the property was legally abandoned after Indalex went bankrupt.

"The (condemnation) process is going to take us two months," said Supervisor Dick Monteith, who represents that part of unincorporated north Modesto.

Considering how fast scavengers are tearing the place apart, by then there might not be much left but concrete and garbage.

The scavengers are unrepentant about helping themselves to anything of value there.

"It feeds the family," said HectorBonilla, 24, of Modesto, who has been a "recycler" for about four years.

Bonilla said he has been cutting up and collecting tin at Indalex for a week. The two loads he sold Tuesday to scrap metal dealers earned him $400. He anticipated making $200 on Wednesday.

He was among the few dozen people tearing out chunks of the complex Wednesday.

"There is one guy out there using a tractor with a front-end loader (to rip off pieces)," said Monteith, who visited the site Wednesday afternoon.

The Indalex calamity began after the facility closed in 2008. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, and in 2010 the Bankruptcy Court allowed it to abandon the Modesto property. Late last year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spent $500,000 cleaning up toxic chemicals left there.

When the EPA was done, it fenced off the building and posted signs warning people to keep out. Vandals and thieves then began sneaking in.

Sheriff's deputies initially arrested trespassers, but that stopped after officials realized the building had no owner, so there was no "victim." Without a victim, there was no way to prove the scavengers didn't have permission to take whatever they wanted.

Once word got out that no one was being arrested, looters multiplied and became brazen.

Alan Fenstermacher, vice president of the nearby Wood Connection, said he has seen 40 or more scavengers there at a time.

"I find it atrocious that someone can steal a building and there are no penalties," Fenstermacher said. "So many laws and rules are being broken."

Fenstermacher said millions of dollars worth of equipment and materials have been removed from the building since it closed.

Thieves have even stolen the fence around it.

Neighbors in the North Modesto Industrial Park say squatters, drug users, gang members, vandals and car racers also frequent the place.

At one point last week, someone there shut off the valve that controls the industrial park's fire suppression system. That left the entire park without protection for two hours, said Chad Wolf, who owns a nearby building.

"The water supply to the hydrants has been restored," assured Hugo Patino, a battalion chief for the Modesto Regional Fire Authority.

That's a good thing, considering a fire broke out inside Indalex late Monday. It was put out by early Tuesday, but Patino said firefighters were put in danger because the structure is so unstable.

Patino said fire officials decided Tuesday that future fires will be fought from outside only because it is too perilous inside.

Ambulance crews won't go in, either.

"Due to the instability of the building and presence of hazardous materials, AMR (American Medical Response) has instructed our paramedics and EMTs not to enter this facility," said AMR spokesman Jason Sorrick. "Our crews will wait to have firefighters extricate patients from the building before administering care."

Anyone who does go inside Indalex "is doing so at their own risk," warned Thomas Boze, one of Stanislaus County's attorneys. "It is stupid to be in there."

Boze said he does not understand why scavengers think it is OK to loot the place: "It takes a truly skewed point of view to believe you can go out, chop up a building, then go home at night and feed your family."

Because the scavengers have made such a mess at Indalex, the price of demolishing and clearing the site has increased. Boze said the county had gotten estimates it would cost $150,000, but that was only if the steel support beams remained and could be resold for their metal value.

"Now we're looking at $250,000 to clean this place up, and that's assuming there are no toxins on the site," Boze said. He said the county is strapped for cash, "so we don't know where the money is going to come from to do this."

Read more: http://www.modbee.com/2011/11/16/195069 ... z1eN7ewL7n

Those are strategic metals America would need in a conflict with China.

The illegals are grabbing and exporting all the strategic metals they can to China.

If a war occurs as China anticipates, China will have the metal she needs for ships, planes, tanks, guns, and electronics.

America will not.

W