Double Industry Award-winning Remediation Project

This project exemplifies a highly sustainable form of remediation, virtually devoid of environmental burden with low H&S risks, and with estimated cost savings likely to have exceeded £500,000. The outcome was the best the client could have hoped for and exceeded project sign-off goals proposed to the regulators.

Project Summary

  • High and low concentrations of Chlorinated Solvents (PCE), in high and low permeabilities, were successfully treated by using a single platform technology.
  • The in situ approach was made possible by the Regenesis HRC product range, which avoided the need for a million pound, highly disruptive, excavation and disposal project.
  • PCE DNAPL was successfully treated in two years through stimulation of in situ biological degradation, despite little evidence of naturally occurring reductive dechlorination in the previous 25 years.
  • The injection works were undertaken by Regenesis Remediation Services and completed in two weeks, with no disturbance to the local neighbourhood, site users or industrial activities.

Brownfield Briefing Awards Quotes

“ This highly technical groundwater remediation project impressed the judges. It demonstrated a range of techniques that were used to gather high quality data to monitor the progress and the success of the project.”

“This project was an excellent example of how existing technology can be thoughtfully applied.”

“Great teamwork by Hyder and REGENESIS Europe has provided the best hoped for outcome, with minimal disruption to our operation and neighbourhood.”

Historic PCE spill with several zones of DNAPL

Tetrachloroethene (PCE) is used as a dry cleaning fluid at an industrial dry cleaning facility near Manchester, in the Northwest of England. In the early 1980s, prior to Johnsons Apparelmaster ownership, a delivery spill occurred. Most of the spill was captured by hardcover and within surface drainage but up to 2 tonnes was estimated to have entered the made ground and clay soils beneath the yard and factory, to depths of 10m BGL. As part of Johnsons’ CSR policy and liability provision, they investigated the historic spill and determined that remediation was required to protect off-site receptors and remove the potential for action under Part 2A. The project was initially managed by another consultancy, who had proposed pollutant mass reduction via excavation. Hyder were asked to provide a peer review and were then retained to help deliver an alternative, less disruptive and more and cost-effective in situ remediation. They researched whether the degree of pollution present (several zones of DNAPL) and high impact to groundwater could be addressed by enhancement alone and concluded it would be possible to reduce risk to acceptable levels by using REGENESIS products.