Got a spill? Advanced Environmental offers a clean-up solution in county

Belen

Robert and Jim Chavez started Advanced Environmental Solutions Inc. two years ago in Los Lunas, but its success has compelled them to move to a much bigger building in Belen.

When the Chavezes, who are brothers-in-law, founded the business with their wives, June and Eileen, more than two years ago, they had five employees and no revenue. Today, the company has expanded to 15 employees, a new 7,000-square-foot building, and about $135,000 in revenue a month.

“We know that Valencia County is growing, and we’ll continue to work with people to help support industry that comes in,” said Robert Chavez, president of AES.

Jim Chavez, who is vice-president and operations manager, said the move to the new building on Roldan Drive in Belen was very much needed. Since its move in January, the company has expanded its office space from 400 square feet to 1000 square feet, which includes several offices and a conference room.

AES is a locally-based environmental, industrial and construction services company. AES’s unique abilities allow it to offer a wide variety of services, including 24-hour emergency spill-response, waste management, recycling, tank management, residential and commercial construction and sampling and analysis.

“We’ll get calls when a tractor trailer dumps fuel all over the side of the road, and we actually go out and clean it up,” Robert Chavez said. “We’ll also re-spond where a truck has a drum with a chemical leak. We’ll go out there and basically empty out the trailer and find which drum is leaking. We’ll mitigate the spill, clean up the waste and send them on their way.”

Advanced Environmental Solutions also brokers transport of waste from businesses that generate hazardous waste to facilities across the country. Robert Chavez said the reason people use them is because AES audits every facility it works with.

“We make sure they’re in compliance with regulations,” Robert Chavez said. “When we go to our customers, we tell them we’re sending the waste to a fully audited lab.”

AES also offers remediation and decontamination services. The local company will take a contaminated site and remove — remediate — the pollutants.

“There are different types of remediation we do,” Robert Chavez said. “We’ll do on-site remediation, which means we’ll do a chemical treatment to whatever needs to be treated and it’s no longer a problem. Or we can physically remove it.”

On the industrial side of things, Advanced Environmental Solutions also does underground-storage-tank removals and installation of oil-water separators. On the construction side, the company provides residential and commercial maintenance and demolition.

Jim Chavez said clients can save on costs by using them because of the unique combination of environmental and construction experience.

“We take it from design all the way to move in,” he said. “We can take someone’s ideas and put it to paper so we can came up with a full set of plans that someone can build off. But, we take it one step further. Not only do we offer that, we can actually build the building.

“We also upgrade a lot of the state facilities with ADA (Americans with Disability Act) standards with ramps,” he said.

All AES technicians can operate heavy equipment and hold commercial driver’s licenses with HazMat endorsements. Technicians are also certified to wear respirators, supplied air and other required personal protective equipment. They all attend Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) required courses, including confined space, hazardous waste operator and CPR/First Aid Training.

Advanced Environmental Solutions Inc. is located at 2318 Roldan Drive in Belen. For more information about the locally-based company, call 861-1700.