![[logo] US EPA](http://www.epa.gov/epafiles/images/logo_epaseal.gif){kind=logo}
EPA/540/R-05/006
Treatability
Study Report of Green Mountain Laboratories, Inc.'s Bioremediation Process
Treatment of PCB Contaminated Soils, at Beede Waste Oil/Cash Energy Superfund
Site, Plaistow, New Hampshire
(PDF, 487 Kb, 44 pp)
April 2005
You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA's PDF page to learn more.
Abstract:
In 1998, under the sponsorship of the New Hampshire - Department of Environmental Services (NHDES), Green Mountain Laboratories, Inc. (GML) and the USEPA agreed to carry out a Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation (SITE) project to evaluate the effectiveness of GML’s Bioremediation Process for the treatment of PCB contaminated soils at the Beede Waste Oil/Cash Energy Superfund site in Plaistow, New Hampshire (hereinafter referred to as the Beede site). The treatment process involved inoculation/augmenting of the PCB contaminated soils with bulk microbial inoculum and nutrients, and allowing the microbes to aerobically degrade the PCBs. The bulk inoculum was produced on-site by the developer using animal feed-grade oatmeal as the substrate, shredded pine needles that provided certain specific co-metabolite compounds, nutrients and a proprietary consortium of microorganisms capable of degrading the PCBs to their eventual endpoints - carbon dioxide and mineral halides.
The results of the field evaluation of the technology, which are based on the data collected from the treatability study conducted in the third quarter of 1998, indicate no removal/degradation of the PCBs. In earlier laboratory tests, GML had used concentrated pine extract to provide the co-metabolite compounds, whereas, for the field study it used shredded pine needles. At the end of the field treatability study, based on its own observations and data, GML concluded that it may have inadvertently made some fundamental errors in the production and application of the bulk inoculum. Subsequently, the EPA SITE program and the NHDES agreed to give GML another opportunity to demonstrate its technology’s capability in degrading PCB in the Beede site soil, but at a much smaller laboratory scale. In September 2000, GML carried out a limited number of preliminary bench-scale tests, at the Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont to reestablish the viability of its process. At the conclusion of the bench-scale tests, GML conceded that, at best the tests were inconclusive and at worst had failed. The project was terminated at that time.
Contact:Vincente Gallardo
gallardo.vincente@epa.gov