From seat of the pants to skin of the teeth

Bert Hill
The Ottawa Citizen

March 4, 2005

Over 10 years Environmental Management Solutions built a strong business cleaning up the industrial messes of Canada’s past from LeBreton Flats to the oil fields of Alberta.

Today, the former Ottawa company is caught in the middle of a toxic mess of its own making. Current and past management are fighting a no-holds-barred battle for control.
The spectacle is dragging in such high-profile celebrity members of EMS’s board as former Ontario premier Mike Harris. And the war is now causing significant harm to the business.

Mr. D’Addario is a 43-year-old engineer who started the business from his Ottawa home while still working for the federal government.

Using his knowledge of federal clean-up rules and incentives, he built a small consulting business into a big, integrated enterprise that removes contaminated waste from old plant and oil drilling sites, cleans it in special soil-remediation plants across Canada, and sells the organic residue.

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