Waste site cleaned with one-pass trenching technology. An abandoned sand and gravel quarry, with a dubious second use as an industrial waste disposal dumping ground, has been cleaned up with the aid of a technology known as the one-pass trenching method.

The site had accepted distillation wastes from a local solvent recycler. Due to odours, the dumping prompted citizen complaints that eventually led to an investigation by state officials and the end of disposal activities in 1974. Early studies showed that the shallow groundwater was heavily contaminated with a variety of organic chemicals. Contaminants included benzene, chlorobenzene, trichloroethane, and vinyl chloride, as well as metals. Contaminants had migrated into the underlying aquifer, which is the source of water for local residents.

Site clean-up ultimately fell to the federal government, under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the quarry was eventually placed on the national Priority List. Over the intervening decades since the disposal was halted, a federally-funded clean-up has continued, based on three separate “Records of Decision”, each of which delineated the steps and process to be taken. Check out the PDF below to find out how Dewind One-Pass Trenching used One-Pass Technology to address this problem.