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| Brownfields Weekly |
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December 20, 2001 THIS WEEK:
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ExxonMobil Pays $11.2 Million in Hazwaste Case BROOKLYN, New York (ENS) - ExxonMobil will pay $11.2 million to settle one of the largest hazardous waste cases in the nation's history. The agreement settles a case filed in 1996 against Mobil Oil Corporation, now part of ExxonMobil. The company was charged with mismanaging benzene contaminated wastes at Port Mobil, a major petroleum product storage and distribution terminal on the Arthur Kill river in Staten Island. The settlement includes an $8.2 million civil penalty under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), one of the largest civil penalties ever obtained under RCRA. Benzene, a known human carcinogen, became a regulated hazardous waste under RCRA in 1990. The other $3 million of the settlement will be used to purchase or restore environmentally sensitive lands in New York City on the Arthur Kill waterway, which runs between Staten Island and New Jersey. ExxonMobil will also fund a complete cleanup at Port Mobil after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completes a study of the site. Mobil has admitted that from 1991 to 1993, the company discharged hazardous wastes, including benzene, into two large artificial ponds on the site without a permit and without the protections required by law. The EPA's National Environmental Investigations Center (NEIC) analyzed 1993 samples from Port Mobil, and found levels of benzene as much as 20 times the legal limit. The government's investigation showed that Mobil engineers had manipulated previous tests to show a lower level of benzene. Mobil also calculated that avoiding federal hazardous waste regulation would save the company millions of dollars in cleanup costs. "For two years, Mobil Oil dumped benzene contaminated waste from its Port Mobil facility on Staten Island into ponds and then the Arthur Kill waterway, in violation of federal environmental laws," said U.S. Attorney Alan Vinegrad in announcing the settlement. "After years of hard fought litigation, the government has achieved enormous success in righting the wrongs caused by Mobil's unlawful conduct," added Vinegrad.
Australian Mine Becomes Prototype for Cleaning Up Mine Waste MELBOURNE, Victoria, Australia - A small Australian gold mine is becoming the prototype for a radical new way to transform toxic mine waste from an expensive liability into an environmental and economic windfall. Native eucalypt trees and other cash crops, grasses and plants that can extract heavy metals from the soil could soon adorn an experimental tailings dam set up at the Stawell gold mine in the state of Victoria. The concept represents a major shift in the way tailings dams and mine wastes are managed and rehabilitated. The University of Melbourne in collaboration with Stawell Gold Mines Pty Ltd and Curtin University, Western Australia, will test a suite of plants at a Tailings Experimental Research Facility (TERF) that they hope will bring long-term environmental and economic benefits to the region. Giant excavators are already busy sectioning off a two hectare area that a University of Melbourne PhD student will use to trial four native grasses and four eucalypts. Augustine Doronila, who is using TERF for his PhD research to help find economic options for the revegetation of sulphidic gold mine tailings, said, "The eucalypts include oil mallee and river red gum which could be used for the production of firewood and eucalyptus oil. Any product from the dams will be separate from the human food chain to minimise any risk to human health or public safety," he says. Tailings dams of gold mines are often contaminated with a variety of toxic metals, arsenic and cyanide compounds. Such substrates are generally detrimental to plant growth. Mr Doronila hopes that local 'heritage' human waste built up over the last 50 years will solve this problem. The project's coordinating team from the University of Melbourne's School of Botany is also looking to use metal-loving plant species that thrive in contaminated areas like mine tailings. These plants seek out and suck up contaminants like arsenic and heavy metals from the soil and concentrate them in their tissues, helping decontaminate the soil. "The use of such plants could add a whole new dimension to tailings revegetation and restoration and revolutionize the way mining companies rehabilitate Australia's mine sites," says project leader Professor Alan Baker. Potential contamination from mine sites is a major environmental liability for the minerals industry. Currently, managing these wastes costs the Australian mining industry around $60 million a year.
Genomics to be Explored as a Remediation Solution AMHERST, Massachusetts - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a research team $3.1 million in grants to determine whether the new field of genomic science can be applied to cleaning up contaminated environments. Led by Derek R. Lovley of the University of Massachusetts, the team will determine the function of undefined genes in the genome of a microorganism showing promise for many environmental clean up applications. The researchers will use this information to construct a computer model showing how the organism responds to different environmental conditions. "We have known for some time that specialized microorganisms may be helpful in removing pollution from groundwater, and now, by studying the complete DNA sequence of one of these organisms, we will be able to better use it for environmental restoration," said Lovley, head of the microbiology department at the University of Massachusetts. As Lovley emphasized in a recent article in the journal Science, anaerobes - microorganisms that do not need oxygen to survive - are among the simplest, oldest, and most widespread forms of life. However, it was not until recently that anaerobes were recognized for having a significant potential to consume organic pollutants that enter groundwater from underground petroleum spills and landfills. Some anaerobes can clean up toxic inorganic substances as well, even uranium. Lovley was able to culture one of these microorganisms, known as Geobacter, in the laboratory, and scientists at TIGR have completely sequenced its DNA. "It's now our job to determine what all this genetic information can tell us about why Geobacter is so successful in removing contaminants from polluted groundwater," Lovley said. Lovely expects the basic science findings that come from these genome projects will be applied rapidly to actual contamination sites. Private industry and the federal government currently fund Lovely's collaborative research group on a number of ongoing cleanup projects involving petroleum and radioactive waste that contaminate groundwater.
Switch to Soil Washing Will Speed Up Vineland Superfund Site Progress NEW YORK, New York - The EPA has decided to use a different and more efficient cleanup method to remove arsenic from 170,000 cubic yards of plant site soils at the Vineland Chemical Company Superfund site in Cumberland County, New Jersey. After testing and evaluation, EPA determined that the previously selected cleanup method, "soil flushing," would take over 40 years to meet the cleanup goal for the soil in the most contaminated locations. The newly selected method, "soil washing," will reduce the arsenic levels to the cleanup goal in approximately two years. Vineland Chemical made arsenic-based herbicides at the 54-acre property from 1950 to 1994, when it ceased operations. The plant soils contaminated the ground water, which in turn, conveyed the arsenic to the Blackwater Branch tributary, Maurice River and Union Lake water and sediments. The process of soil flushing involves repeatedly forcing large volumes of ground water up through the contaminated soil to remove the arsenic. Soil washing involves excavating contaminated soil and running it through an above-ground system of washing cycles to separate out the arsenic in the soil. The switch in the soil cleanup plan will dramatically cut the time it takes to eliminate the arsenic at the site as a source of off-site contamination. Soil washing would take about two years, rather than decades, to complete the job. EPA also projected that it would have cost approximately $2 to 3 million a year to run the soil flushing system, and that the switch to soil washing could save up to $84 million and take just 24 months from start to finish. The soil cleanup will be the latest step in a series of agency actions to address the environmental and public health problems posed by the site. In 1994, EPA fenced off the contaminated areas on the property and removed hazardous chemicals stored there. In 1995, EPA completed the $3 million building demolition work at the site when more than 2,500 tons of building debris were shipped to federal and state approved facilities for disposal. Last summer, the $15.1 million ground water collection system began operations and is successfully reducing arsenic-contaminated ground water to the Agency’s cleanup goal. Future agency actions, in addition to the site soils cleanup, will address the cleanup of arsenic-contaminated sediments in the tributary, river and lake.
Landfill Gas Turned into Fuel, Soda Bubbles WASHINGTON, D.C. - A new technique developed by Acrion Technologies Inc. could slash air pollution produced by municipal landfills where Americans deposit more than 100 million tons of garbage every year. The garbage creates a major source of air emissions, expelling carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane as it decomposes. At an open house Tuesday at the New Jersey EcoComplex, Acrion demonstrated how its technique will make it easier to capture the CO2 before it escapes into the atmosphere and use the captured gases for commercial ventures. Current federal law requires many landfills to collect the gas and dispose of it in one of two ways: either burn the gas, or install a landfill gas to energy system. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says every one million tons of waste deposited in landfills produces enough landfill gas to generate seven million kilowatt hours of electricity per year, enough for 700 homes. Using this gas for energy purposes, rather than expelling it into the atmosphere, is equivalent to removing more than 6,000 cars from the road, or planting 8,300 acres of trees. Acrion, based in Cleveland, Ohio, received a research grant from the Energy Department (DOE) in 1998. With the federal backing, the company developed a process called "CO2 Wash" which it first tested at a New York site. With follow up funding from the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory, the company has scaled up the process at the New Jersey EcoComplex. Since it began operating this summer, the system has been processing gases captured from decomposing waste at the Burlington County landfill. After moisture is removed, the gases are compressed and fed into the bottom of the unit's three story high column. As the gases drift upward, refrigeration at the top of the column condenses the CO2 into liquid form. A portion of the liquid CO2 washes down the column, cleansing volatile organic contaminants from the gas. Clean, high grade fuel gas exits the top and can be used in turbines, boilers or fuel cells to generate electricity. The small stream of contaminant laden CO2 that is used to wash out impurities in the landfill gas is vaporized and burned in a flare to destroy the volatile organic compounds. The CO2 not used for the wash is drawn off as a 99.99 percent pure liquid CO2 stream that can be used in a variety of commercial applications, from making dry ice to carbonating soft drinks. One option Acrion is examining is to pipe the CO2 to Burlington County's R&D Greenhouse and Resource Recovery Complex, where tomatoes and other plants would benefit from the CO2 enriched environment. |