One of the Indianapolis area’s largest environmental contractors has declared bankruptcy.
ESI Environmental Inc., 5232 W. 79th St., filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Oct. 1.
The firm listed assets of $41,466 and liabilities of nearly $35.3 million. The largest secured creditor, Churchill Capital Inc. in Minneapolis, is owed $16.2 million on a temporary bridge loan it provided to ESI.
Founded in 1992, ESI ranked as the area’s second-largest environmental contractor based on revenue, according to the most recent IBJ statistics. It listed revenue of $16 million in 2009, down from $23 million the previous year.
Employee headcount also dropped during the period, from 103 in 2008 to 68 last year.
ESI specialized in the treatment of non-hazardous wastewater, oil recovery and recycling, industrial cleaning, lab packing and environmental demolition.
Phone calls to ESI's office were not answered Friday morning. A message left on the home answering machine ESI President and CEO Tom Gawlik was not returned. The lawyer who filed ESI's bankruptcy papers didn’t return a phone call left Friday morning.
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