Brownfields
Superfund
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed a program which empowers the states, communities, and other investors in the economic redevelopment to cooperate in a timely manner to
The Federal government created the Superfund program which is an effort to clean up land in the United States which has been contaminated by hazardous waste and has been identified by the EPA as a candidate for cleanup due to the risks it poses to human health and/or the environment.
The program started in 1980 when Congress put in place the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). With this act, the EPA cooperates with the communities, parties involved, scientists and researchers, along with many others to identify hazardous waste sites, test the conditions, formulate treatment plans, and decontaminate the sites.
prevent, assess, safely clean up, and sustainably reuse brownfields. A brownfield is considered to be a property in which the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of may be complicated due to the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. The benefits of cleaning up and reinvesting in brownfields include increases in local tax bases, facilitation of job growth, utilization of existing infrastructure, releases development pressures off of undeveloped open land, and both improves and protects the environment.
Contaminated Sites
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico had an oil spill and the government was unable to make progress in its treatment; however, a natural solution already existed. The natural microbes already present in the ocean excellent cleaners and with the aid of fertilizer, they can successfully remove the oil from the Gulf. The addition of fertilizer helps the microorganisms multiply beyond their natural state, allowing them to consume the toxic metals up to five times faster than without assistance.
Bakar Ex Cokeing Plant Site, Croatia
A polluted zone of 20,000 m³ in Bakar, Croatia has been immobilized due to an E.U. agreement based on the Solidification/Stabilization with ImmoCem. After three years of research, the Croatian political authority allowed the E.U. to finance the immobilization program. The zone is contaminated with large amounts of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), and metals. For this area, the mix-in-plant method was chosen by the servicer.​
Ben & Jerry’s Homemade, Inc.
Ben & Jerry’s is a super premium ice cream manufacturing facility in Waterbury, Vermont. The waste coming from the company is extremely high in strength with the biochemical oxygen demand concentrations normally above 10,000 milligrams per liter (mg/L), and often rising above 20,000 mg/L. The ice cream contains other ingredients as well, causing the subsequent wastes to be high in biochemical oxygen demand. Although the factory constructed an aerated lagoon pretreatment facility in 1987 to reduce the waste being discharged, many difficulties including organic overloading and aeration system failure interfered with the operations. To help with this, Advanced BioTech Complete Waste and Odor was added to the lagoon every two weeks, and after eight weeks, the solid waste was collected and the odor was eliminated.
Slaughterhouses
In slaughterhouses, the slaughtering, processing, and preserving activities occurring in the production of meat generate large quantities of wastewater and solid waste. The wastewater is made up of a complex mixture of proteins, organic compounds, and fats. Slaughterhouses lack financial and technical resources, so the wastes are often discharged into the municipal sewer system or directly into bodies of water like ponds and rivers, putting the ecosystems at risk. This is treated through an anaerobic process which can also save money by using the methane generated from the process as a source of energy. The anaerobic process generally consists of four stages: the first is hydrolysis, the transformation of organic matter into simple soluble products; then the acidogenic stage, fermentative bacteria use the hydrolysis products to form intermediate compounds; followed by the partial oxidization of organic acids by acidogenic (bacteria); and finally, both the acetic acid and hydrogen are used as raw material for the growth of methanogenic bacteria.
