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Former Manufactured Gas Plant Remediation Project
A demolition rig tears down a structure at the work site.
Project Details:
- Client: Electric Company
- Contaminants: BTEX compounds exceeding 2,000 ppm; PAH compounds exceeding 5,000 ppm
- Regulatory Agencies: EPA; Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources
- Contract Value: About $1.3 Million
Stack Implosion
Remediation in progress at 105 year-old manufactured gas plant site.
Related Information
Related Services
Background
This project involved demolition and site remediation of a former manufactured gas plant. The client selected MARCOR for the job because of our impressive history of utilizing innovative techniques and technologies for remediation.
Hazardous tar sludge wastes from coal gasification plants is a major problem in the United States and in Europe. In the U.S. alone, there are some 1,200 sites scheduled for some type of remediation. Given the relatively high costs involved in transportation and disposal of hazardous coal tar sludges, less expensive remediation options have been evaluated. After extensive evaluations, our chemical fixation technology has been determined to be highly effective. Based on the controlled addition of proprietary chemical reagents, this method offers processing simplicity, chemical degradation of PAHs, and physical immobilization of breakdown products. A bench-scale treatability study was conducted at the site to further document our success. (Further details and technical papers are available from MARCOR.)
Job Description
This project required the excavation and disposal of RCRA hazardous and non-hazardous coal tar sludges and soils. It also involved strategic demolition of a smoke stack and coal bunker.
Remediation included excavation and disposal of contaminated material from three abandoned tar separators. The tar separators contained approximately 3,000 tons of a fly-ash/ soil mixture, which were contaminated with coal tar and petroleum residuals. Characterization of the separators revealed that the bottom layers consisted of a coal tar sludge, which typically tested as RCRA hazardous for benzene, whereas the top layers consisted of fly-ash and soil which were typically non-RCRA hazardous. The remedial strategy was to excavate and process the material in a way that maximized the amount of material managed as non-hazardous. The bottom two to four feet of coal tar sludge were kept separated. The non-hazardous material was recycled using thermal desorption.
For additional information, call MARCOR's corporate headquarters at 1-800-547-0128 or send email to info@marcor.com.
