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Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Charles E Wilson

Media reports to the contrary, heavy manufacturing remains a significant contributor to the US economy. Manufacturers include those that turn out a vast array of products fabricated from steel.

Much has changed in the steel fabricating industry in recent years, but many of the manufacturing processes still call for application of various chemical treatments — including galvanizing and pickling. Further, the fabricators still have to find a safe and reliable way to dispose of the waste chemicals from the treatment process.

Many of these steel fabricators — especially those in the Midwest — turn to Vickery Transportation Inc and its partner, Vickery Environmental Inc, for disposal of what are often hazardous wastes. It is something that these two companies do exceedingly well.

“As the house carrier for Vickery Environmental, we transport better than half of all inbound hazardous waste shipments to their facility in Vickery, Ohio,” says John Whittington, transportation specialist at Vickery Transportation. “We're seeing steady growth from year to year, and 2007 was our best year to date. We are very optimistic about the future for this operation.

“Probably 95% of the loads we handle go to Vickery Environmental, although we do haul some shipments to other treatment locations. Most of the loads we transport are hazardous wastes, but we do move a few non-hazardous wastes.”

Growing operation

A subsidiary of Grammer Industries Inc, the Vickery, Ohio-based tank truck fleet was established in 1999. “Grammer got into this as a contract carrier supplementing the trucking service provided by Vickery Environmental's own small fleet,” Whittington says. “We served Vickery Environmental with trucks from our Ft Wayne (Indiana) terminal. Before long, Grammer was supplying 80% to 90% of the brokered transportation for the waste treatment company. Eventually, we were offered the opportunity to take over the Vickery Environmental fleet and manage all of the transport operations for the facility.”

Today, Vickery Transportation runs eight company-owned tractors and 28 tank trailers. Five to six owner-operators also haul loads for Vickery Transportation, and the carrier has access to fleet assets of its parent company.

They serve a waste disposal operation that has been open since the 1950s. The 517-acre facility is operated by Vickery Environmental, a division of Waste Management Inc. Typically, Vickery Environmental processes 30 million to 35 million gallons of hazardous waste annually and is permitted for a maximum of 54 million gallons a year.