Cutting-Edge
Clean-Up
ITT utilizes new technology for Michigan remediation
project
In 1942, Higbie, Inc. began making automotive tubing
at its new Avon factory in Rochester, Michigan. Fifty years later, the
company - which was then owned by ITT Corporation - was the subject of
an internal ITT environmental audit which uncovered unacceptable levels
of industrial solvents and lead in the soil around the Avon site.
Now, 10 years on (and eight years after selling Higbie and closing the
plant), ITT Industries has completed the clean-up, leaving the land and
nearby creek safer for bikers, hikers, trout and other wildlife.
The clean-up plan included two tried-and-true remedies: soil vapor extraction
and air sparging. Soil vapor extraction utilizes a series of wells and
pumps to extract air and chemical vapors from the soil, while sparging
injects air into the groundwater to force even more vapors into the cleanup
equipment.
After two years, these technologies had taken ITT's remediation efforts
much of the way towards cleaning up and closing the site. ITT's Director
of Environmental Programs Teresa Olmsted and her team began searching
for a new technology that could finish the job. They came across the zero-valent
iron permeable reactive wall (ZVI PRW).
"Our PRW walls are a patented technology, filled with very tiny iron fillings
and sand, and inserted into the ground," says Olmsted. "As the groundwater
flows through the wall on its way to the creek, a chemical reaction -
reductive dehalogenation - takes place, treating the water before it discharges
into the creek."
This past summer, ITT installed two walls - covering more than 150 feet
and constructed up to 34 feet deep. The walls are totally invisible to
the developers who now own the land and to the residents who will navigate
its biking-hiking trails, but their impact is not going unnoticed.
"The discharges to the creek are expected to be well below the allowable
state limits, and we're getting a lot of positive comments and press about
our efforts," says Olmsted. "People appreciate it when a company takes
its remediation responsibilities seriously."
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