[CPEO-MEF] VOCs, MUNITIONS: Utah Test Range permeable reactive barrier

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Dummy bombs may fight pollution

By Joseph M. Dougherty
Deseret News (UT)
May 4, 2009

SUNSET — If you are a major branch of the U.S. military and you have 
somewhat of a pollution problem on your hands, it must be heartening to 
know that you may already own part of the cleanup solution.

And who knew that solution could include bombs?

For years, the Air Force has used the Utah Test and Training Range in 
Utah's West Desert to practice dropping dummy bombs made of iron.

And it just so happens that iron reacts well with a possible carcinogen 
known as trichloroethene, or TCE. Because of TCE in the various plumes 
of groundwater seeping underground from the base, the area was added to 
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of Superfund sites in 
1987, and restoration efforts have been under way since 1990.

This spring, base engineers expect to try a new twist on an old favorite 
remediation effort — the permeable reactive barrier. If successful, this 
new effort could be applied to similar cleanup efforts across the U.S. 
Department of Defense.

Hill Air Force Base has purchased a crushing machine to turn the 
formerly useless hunks of iron left over from bombing practice into 
grains of iron sand. This is the first time bombs are being used to 
clean up pollution, said Mark Roginske, site manager over two plumes of 
pollution in Roy, Sunset and Clinton.

....

For the entire article, see
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705301446,00.html

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org




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