One of the most important buildings in Thorsby, Alabama, is apparently in need of far more than termite control and a few simple repairs. Recent inspections have shown town members that the historic Helen Jenkins Chapel has been so eroded by the insects that it can no longer serve its purpose as a place of worship or as the town meeting centre the residents of the area have been holding their meetings in for ages.

Thorsby’s Helen Jenkins Chapel should have received termite control treatments before, but it is now doubted that they were kept up regularly, given the extent of the termite damage discovered by the inspectors of the building. The chapel, a striking structure with a beautifully unique architectural style, had been constructed by the Norwegian Lutherans who had immigrated to the area. The church was built around the very start of the 1900s, and had seemed to weather the century since unscathed. The first signs that something rotten was hiding under the beautiful façade, though, came last month.

Last month, town members were informed that there was noticeable dropping to the floors of the historic building. In one corner, it was noted that the floors had dropped just half an inch shy of 5 inches, worrying caretakers and town leaders. The town managed to get a grant worth $5000 for the purpose of repairing the floor and summarily sent in an engineer to take a look at the structure. The engineer, however, discovered that the problem went far deeper than the floors—perhaps deeper even than whatever termite control treatments had been applied to the building had penetrated, in fact.

The engineer called in for the job, Dwight Austin of Austin Engineering, LLC, stated that he discovered massive erosion of many inner parts of the chapel, from the interiors of the walls to the very column supporting the steeple of the church. This last point was one that caused significant worry: upon further inspection, it was discovered that the steeple’s column was already on the point of giving out. Concerned for the safety of town members, who regularly used the church for their town meetings, the authorities decided to close the chapel instead of risking injuries to anyone.

While termite control treatments are certainly going to be in the future for the church, a major renovation is also being planned, which could probably the bigger problem. Renovations of historic edifices often cost quite a lot, and few towns have the funds to cover such projects through the public coffer. According to the chairwoman of the local Historical Preservation Committee, every effort is going to be made to raise funds for the project, though.

The Department of Environmental Conservation in New York has finally finished cleaning a site in Garden City Park that used to be a termite extermination facility’s location, and which has been the subject of environmental and health concerns for some time now due to the soil being saturated with hazardous chemicals. The chemicals of particular concern in this case were termite control pesticides and other such insecticidal substances.

The site was found to be of concern a good few decades ago, with the first major indications of contamination of the environment by the termite extermination chemicals being noted in the 1980s. At that time, it was discovered that the a particular insecticide, chlordane, was in regular usage in and around the site, and that it had even been applied to the parking areas of the termite extermination facility. As the parking areas had not even been paved or covered by asphalt, there was serious concern at this discovery. Later on, after tests were carried out late in the 80s to allow investigators to assess how much the chemicals had spread and how serious environmental contamination had become, it was found that the groundwater and soil in the area was already showing trace amounts of the pesticide.

After the evaluations, it was determined that the Department of Environmental Conservation would oversee the cleanup of the area, with the participation of J. Barwick Landscape & Site Developers and Groundwater Environmental Services, Inc. The actual cleanup work started late in 2010, and the ending of cleanup activities on-site was last year, October. However, the Department of Environmental Conservation is still working out a set of rules or regulations governing future usage or rental of the site so as to ensure that it does not become subjected to environmentally hazardous chemicals or substances again. The Department has clarified that the site is clean enough to be used again for general commercial usage, though it has yet to clarify too what are the parameters for this permission.

The Superfund programme of the United States Environmental Protection Agency deals with various sites that, like the old termite extermination facility in Garden City Park, are considered to be potentially dangerous waste sites to the environment that have long fallen out of use and which have been abandoned by their original proprietors or operators. The idea behind the programme is to facilitate preservation of the environment in the long term by reviewing candidates in the list of sites to be cleaned up, arranging said candidates by order of urgency or priority, and then engaging all possible resources, from state to society, to clean up the area and maintain its health and freedom from potentially perilous wastes.

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The US-based company Dow AgroSciences has just seen fit to name a new product manager for its pest control line, which includes its world-famous termite control products. The new US product manager for the brand is Jill Zeller, who started working for the company only last year.

The termite control and pest management brand’s latest appointee for product manager has impressive credentials, even if she is fairly new to the company fold. Equipped with two university degrees—one for the specialised communications course of agriculture and another for the economics specialisation of the same field—she has also worked her way up from the lower ranks in the field in her previous work experience, which adds to her value as a manager. Typically, companies tend to search for supervisors and administrators who have had experience in the lower ranks as well, as well as on the field in whatever area they specialise in, so that understanding of even the lower ends of the process is assured. As Zeller used to work in the sales end of the business at her previous place of employment, she obviously has sufficient experience to make her qualified for her new role at Dow AgroSciences.

The product manager of a brand is expected to work on the marketing side of the equation, handling promotions for products and making sure that consumers hear about their products and have them as clear options when searching for solutions to their problems. In that sense, Zeller actually has fairly little to do—at least, when it comes to establishing the popularity of the brand’s major offerings. Especially in the fields of pest control and extermination, Dow AgroSciences is already very well known all around the world, especially as it has under its wing one of the most popular termite control systems on the globe: Sentricon.

The Sentricon Termite Control system is a famous name indeed in the termite prevention field. This system operates on much the same principle as your average baiting system, but with better technology and far better results. Sentricon’s Always Active technology is well-regarded in the industry for its durability and longevity as well as the potency of its delayed-action termiticide, which often manages to spread a good bit through termite colonies, unlike other types of baiting termiticides. In fact, the Sentricon termite control system is so well known and well-regarded that it is the very same system used to protect several of the country’s most famous historic landmarks. Just one example of these would be the Statue of Liberty itself. Another example is the White House, along with the United States Capitol Building.