A mammoth undertaking.

It doesn't take a pontificating magazine writer to tell you that the tremendous amount of debris generated in the Gulf Coast by the twin hurricanes of Katrina and Rita will take a long time and require a lot of equipment to clean up. Large amounts of that type of equipment, such as grinders, crushers, loaders, excavators and trucks, are owned and operated by the readers of this magazine. Many of our readers have expressed an interest in working on the cleanup effort. But there remain a lot of barriers to be hurdled and questions to be asked before many of them should jump in.

First are the geographical restrictions. Understandably and rightly, the local and federal authorities have decreed that local contractors will get first dibs on all the business there. This will only help them restart their businesses and will help them grow as they pick up local labor and buy from local vendors to handle the huge undertaking.

But there is way too much material for them to handle. As outlined in our article starting on page 14, perhaps 670 million cubic yards of material is estimated to be waiting to be dealt with. That is too much for the local hauling and processing infrastructure. So eventually there will be a need for outside help.

The New England Chapter of the Construction Materials Recycling Association (CMRA) was organizing and listing what equipment and operators were available to help with the cleanup. The organization talked with several of the large contractors receiving those tremendous amounts of money, but was stymied early on because most of the equipment was coming in from outside and the contractors with the money had not exhausted the local contractors' capabilities yet.

But that wasn't the only problem. Anyone participating in the debris removal and processing would have been at best a subcontractor, and more likely a sub-subcontractor. That makes it less clear on lines of responsibility for final disposition of the material and on getting paid for the work. Unless contractors can be sure they are reporting to an entity that has the authority to determine where the material goes, and has the money to pay the people with the iron actually doing the work, these sub-subcontractors should hesitate to do anything.

Yet as of this writing, many reports indicate that this is the type of chaos going on surrounding the cleanup. Of course, some if it is understandable; there have been few natural disasters on this scale in the United States. It would overwhelm any bureaucracy. But until the authorities, be that the Army Corps of Engineers or whomever, solve this problem, the people with the equipment to really move the cleanup along would be well advised to be cautious in their dealings down there.

How to get involved in disaster debris clean up is one of the many useful and interesting sessions that will be presented during the Annual Meeting of the CMRA this Jan. 15-18 in Miami (a city that is itself no stranger to hurricane damage).

Other topics include a talk by a state materials engineer on recycled materials in the highway environment; an economist's prediction on the future of the construction industry; and community relations for C&D recycling operators of all types. This meeting has proven over the years as the place where recyclers of concrete, asphalt, wood, gypsum, metals and asphalt shingles meet to learn and discuss their issues. Please see pages 46-47 for more details, or go to www.cdworldshow.com to register. Hope to see you there.