^ C ID /V Environmental Utica, New York o trA United States Harbor Point Site November 1993 Environmental Protection Agency ^ T NIAGARA u MOHAWK ATLANTIC _ BERKSHIRES ^NV/IRDKIMPNTAI RFRV/ir.FS IMH INC. Ti Haw Ycrt SUM SUPERFUND INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY EVALUATION ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES. INC. INC. Introduction The Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation (NMPC), in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), is undertaking an ambitious series of environmental research and development projects at the Harbor Point site in Utica, New York. The aim of these projects is to gather information to find the most appropriate and cost-effectivc means of cleaning up former manufactured gas plant (MGP) sites. For over a century, MGPs produced the nation's supply of gas for lighting and heating through the industrial conversion of coal into gas product - until the early 1960s when natural gas became readily available through a widespread network of pipelines. Residues from MGP operations often found their way into soil, surface water, and ground water at the sites and, over time, crept into surrounding communities creating a potential environmental hazard. The Harbor Point site is one of approximately 3,000 MGP sites scattered throughout the United States. In conjunction with NMPC's research and development program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will conduct a Demonstration Test to evaluate an innovative thermal treatment process. The technology is commercial- scale and is slated to remediate a variety of MGP residues. The Demonstration Test is scheduled for November and December 1993. Why The Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation program, commonly known as the SITE program, is a nation-wide EPA program established in 1986 for the purpose of evaluating new, promising technologies to determine if they can be used to reduce risks found at Superfund sites and other contaminated trouble spots. As the name suggests, the SITE program is focused on new technologies being developed now. Technologies which enter the SITE program are typically in need of high-quality, verifiable data to prove their effectiveness on a given combination of pollutants and matrices. To this end, the SITE program works with the technology developer and others to devise a series of rigorous and repetitive tests in order to collect quality assured data. The information is then used in a straight- forward engineering evaluation which determines the degree of the technology's success. The results are published by EPA in a publically-available Innovative Technology Evaluation Report. What The subject of the Demonstration Test is an innovative thermal desorption system (TDS) developed by Clean Berkshires, Inc. (CBI) of Lanesboro, Massachusetts. The CBI TDS uses heat to drive contaminants from excavated solid wastes. If treated sufficiently, the solids can be returned to the site for reuse. The volatilized contaminants are destroyed in a high efficiency afterburner. The resulting ofTgas is cooled in a quench tower and remaining particulate is fdtered in a baghouse before discharge through an elevated stack. The CBI TDS is a full-scale unit which, for this application, runs at a feed rate of 10 to 25 tons per hour. The kiln and afterburner are expected to operate at temperatures in excess of 600°F and 1600°F, respectively. The unit is computer-controlled and completely transportable. The major components of the system, as shown in Figure 1, are: rotary kiln, cyclone, afterburner, quench tower, baghouse, and stack. The system's layout is flexible and facilitates the rearrangement or addition of process equipment. This permits CBI to customize the TDS' operation for site-specific combinations of media and pollutants. For the Demonstration Test, CBI modified an existing TDS which has been successfully processing gasoline- and diesel-contaminated soils at a rate of 100 tons per hour in North Adams, Massachusetts for a number of years. How The performance of the CBI TDS will be evaluated on four waste types which are representative of the kinds of residuals once generated at MGPs. The residuals include: soils and sediments contaminated with coke plant and water gas plant by-products and wood chips from stack gas purifier beds. The residuals are contaminated principally with volatile and semivolatile organics, ferricyanide compounds, lead and arsenic. ------- Figure 1. TDS The CBI TDS will process each waste type with three replicate runs in order to evaluate the stability of the unit's performance. During each run data will be collected in order to demonstrate kiln desorption capability, afterburner destruction and removal efficiency, and fate of pollutants. Process cost and implementation information will also be gathered. Where The Demonstration Test will be conducted at the newly constructed NMPC Remediation Technologies Demonstration (RTD) Facility. The state-of-the-art RTD Facility furnishes nearly 34,000 square feet of covered work space which meets all applicable Federal and State standards for hazardous waste facilities. The RTD Facility provides an environmentally safe area to conduct short duration tests in any season. The Harbor Point site was chosen by NMPC because of its location, size, and the diversity of pollutants found at the site. At its peak, Harbor Point was the location of the largest energy producing complex in North America. Among its facilities were two manufactured gas plants. Harbor Point now contains an estimated 600,000 tons of soils, sediments, and other materials containing MGP residues. Figure 2 provides a diagram of the Harbor Point area. Additional Information For additional information, please contact: Dr. Ronald F. Lewis U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory 26 W. Martin Luther King Drive Cincinnati, OH 45268 (513) 569-7856 Process Flow Diagram Dr. Edward F. Neuhauser Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation 300 Erie Boulevard West Syracuse, NY 13202 (315) 428-3355 Neal Maxymillion Clean Berkshires, Inc. 86 South Main Street Lanesboro, MA 01237 (413) 499-9862 ------- Visitor's Day Registration Form NMPC will host a Visitor's Day on Wednesday, November 17th to provide all interested parties with information on the Harbor Point site, the CBI TDS process, and other environmental projects. Visitor's Day will include a morning meeting at the Radisson Hotel - Utica Centre (200 Genesee Street, Utica, New York) and a tour of the RTD Facility. The schedule of events are listed below. Anyone interested in attending Visitor's Day should complete the pre-registration form provided below. Please mail or fax the form by November 10th to: Evelyn Meagher-Hartzell Science Applications International Corporation J735 West 7th Street, Suite 403 Cincinnati, OH 45203 fax (513) 723-2605 After that date, please contact Evelyn at (513) 723-2600, ext. 2613 to pre-register. Pre-registration is needed to reserve hotel meeting space, provide adequate transportation to/from the site, and allow notification should plans change unavoidably. TIME DESCRIPTION SPEAKER 8:30-9:30 CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST 9:30-10:00 Introduction E. Neuhauser, NMPC J. Harrington, NYSDEC R. Lewis, USEPA SITE 10:00-11:00 Harbor Point Site/NMPC Activities J.P. Moreau, NMPC J. Ripp, Atlantic D. Nakles, RETEC B. Coulombe, RETEC 11:00-11:10 BREAK 11:10-11:30 Thermal Desorption R. Severance, Atlantic N. Maxymillian, CBI 11:30-11:45 SITE Program J. McPherson, SAIC 11:45-12:00 Overview of Site Visit C. Nichols, NMPC 12:00-12:05 Closing (Cut Here) E. Neuhauser, NMPC NAME: ORGANIZATION: ADDRESS: PHONE: ------- |