CEECON maintains a fleet of remediation equipment to use in Site Characterization such as Vapor-Extraction Testing and Pumping Tests.  We have probably been involved in more vapor-extraction tests than any other environmental consultant.  We provide this type of service primarily to Environmental Consultants to assist in implementing appropriate remediation system design, but also directly to a few select clients.

Easily our most popular type of remediation equipment used by Environmental Consultants is our portable vapor-extraction engine - these are also called ICE's for Internal Combustion Engines.  The ICE's extract vapor directly from wells installed in soil suspected to have been impacted by contaminants, and destroy the contaminants through the combustion process that takes place inside the ICE, with a rather large 3-way catalytic converter installed for final polishing of discharged air.  The ICE's are equipped with an on-board sample pump for easy connections to portable field analyzers for influent and effluent vapor sample collection, or Tedlar™ or Summa™ canister sampling.  Our BIVAC dual-extraction trailers are instrumented for easy connection to high-speed data acquisition loggers for groundwater pumping tests or dual-extraction testing.

CEECON also designs Site-Specific Remediation Equipment to test and/or remediate a site, such as in the chlorinated hydrocarbon leak with a dissolved plume size of approximately one-kilometer by two-kilometers, inside the city of Fairbanks, Alaska.

CEECON was asked to prepare a Pilot Test Plan based on assessment data obtained so far on this project.  We designed and oversaw the construction of containerized remediation equipment at our facility in California.  The equipment was then shipped to Fairbanks, Alaska, where CEECON installed the system and made the initial connections to nine vapor-extraction wells and over a dozen air-sparging wells.  A Pilot Test was performed and a  Pilot Test Report was prepared making recommendations to modify the Pilot Test Equipment to use in longer-term soil and groundwater remediation. 

CEECON established vapor sampling and well screening protocol to monitor the progress of this project, performed on-site performance reviews for the three years of remediation equipment operation, and interfaced directly with representatives of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC).  We made recommendations for remediation system optimization, and for the installation of two additional vapor-extraction wells in a remaining site ‘hot spot.’ 

Passive soil gas surveys taken before and after remediation equipment operation showed an 84 % decrease in PCE and TCE concentrations.  Indoor air quality samples taken inside buildings with the suspected plume area were reduced to below the ADEC/EPA threshold for indoor air in a commercial/industrial land use.  PCE levels in groundwater well near the suspected source area were reduced by over 88 % since the start of remediation equipment operation.

CEECON prepared a report submitted to ADEC recommending that the operation of remediation equipment be terminated based on results of system operation, and on an agreement in place with the ADEC.  ADEC, and that recommendation was approved shortly thereafter.