Video Transcription
Narrator: Patriot Engineering, a leading environmental firm based in the midwest, was chosen to develop an approach to address dissolved phase petroleum-impacted groundwater caused by leaking aboveground storage tanks and underground storage tanks.
Steven: The site is a former petroleum bulk storage facility. There was a petroleum release discovered. It migrated off-site. As a result, the site sat idle for a number of years. Patriot was contacted in 2016 after the property owner received a request for compliance from their state regulatory agency and we put in some additional wells, filled in some gaps from wells that had been destroyed, completely delineated the extent of the plume, and we’re now at the point where we’re ready to develop a remedial plan to deal with what’s left.
Narrator: Based on a long history of successful injection work with REGENESIS, Sittler contacted REGENESIS to develop an effective remedial injection plan to address the contaminant levels. In the course of these discussions, REGENESIS offered to work with Patriot to perform an on-site beta test of PetroFix remediation fluid to evaluate its possible use in lieu of more conventional ISCO-enhanced bio approaches.
Paul: We chose this site because the contamination levels were pretty high and we knew that this was going to be a good test of the product balance, so really, how far can we push PetroFix. And the transport was a little bit different than other beta sites that we had done and just to give us a little bit of variety in how we were testing the product before release.
Narrator: Safe, fast, effective, and easy to apply, PetroFix is designed to specifically sorb and biodegrade petroleum hydrocarbons, diesel, BTEX, MTBE, and TPH-G Plumes resulting from spills and leaking underground storage tanks.
Paul: PetroFix is an activated carbon-based product that also comes with an additional amount of electron acceptors. They’re meant to be injected together. And PetroFix is designed to adsorb petroleum contamination and then the electron acceptors that go with it are meant to help the microbial community that’s down there degrade the contaminants while they’re on the carbon and as they’re moving through the site.
Narrator: PetroFix offers an in-situ remediation approach designed specifically for sites where PHC levels are above regulatory standards for complete remediation at the lowest total cost to closure.
Paul: We’ve put a lot of time and effort into making the product easy to use, trying to understand, really, when you use an amendment like this, what are the key things that you need to know to have success on your site.
Steven: The early post-injection groundwater monitoring results from the PetroFix pilot test injection look very promising. Petroleum VOC’s and gasoline-range organics were essentially eliminated from the groundwater at one month post-injection and remain so at three months post-injection. Nitrate and sulfate, which spiked at one month post-injection due to their addition as electron acceptors as part of the injection, were reduced sharply at the three month sampling event, indicating utilization by microbes and biodegradation. This conclusion was also strongly supported by microbial analyses which indicated a shift towards anaerobic petroleum degraders caused by the more favorable environment induced by the nitrate and sulfate injected with the PetroFix.
Additional quarterly post-injection monitoring will continue, however, the promising early results indicate that PetroFix appears to be a viable remedial option for this site. Remedial injection design incorporating PetroFix in several hotspot areas at the site is currently being developed and will be included in the remediation workplan which will be submitted to the regulatory agency for review and approval. Following regulatory approval, the remediation workplan will be implemented, including a full-scale PetroFix injection.
I’ve been very happy working with REGENESIS. They’re a partner. It’s been great working with REGENESIS and hope to keep doing it for years to come.
