The Lab's third groundwater treatment system is now operational.
Construction of the Operable Unit III pump-and-treat system was completed in June, and the system is now working at full capacity. Pump-and-treat works by extracting contaminated groundwater and pumping it to an "air stripping" facility, where a powerful blower separates volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the water. The clean water is recharged (returned to the ground) and the VOCs are released into the air at concentrations below state and federal emission standards.
The system was constructed to treat a plume of VOCs moving south from unidentified sources (still under investigation) in the developed central portion of the Lab site. It is currently processing approximately 600 gallons of water per minute. After the VOC's are removed, the clean water is discharged into a new recharge basin located approximately one mile north of the site boundary.
The extraction system is located approximately 3,000 feet to the west of another system (operational since December 1996), constructed to remediate a plume originating from the Lab's Current Landfill (now closed and capped) and the Hazardous Waste Management Facility. The third system, constructed to prevent further southward migration of the tritium plume associated with the Lab's High Flux Beam Reactor, has been operating since May. While the new system is expected to operate for several years, an approximate operating period will be determined in the OU III Feasibility Study, due out in spring 1998.
Groundwater monitoring wells at the basins and site boundary will be sampled and analyzed regularly to evaluate system performance and ensure compliance with emission permits issued by the N.Y.S. Department of Environmental Conservation. Overseeing all monitoring will be the N.Y.S. Department of Environmental Conservation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy.
For more information on the system, see the Action Memorandum for Operable
Unit III Groundwater Removal Action or the Operable Unit III Groundwater
Removal Action Pre-Design Report, available for review at the Lab's four
information repositories (for locations,
see page 11).