AcuityES at Battelle’s 8th International Conference – May 24th
February 27th, 2012
ACUITY Environmental Solutions’ own Jim Rouse will be presenting a technical paper at Battelle’s Eighth International Conference of Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds in Monterey, California on May 24th.
The paper highlights a remediation project conducted at a former plating facility, located in Muncie, IN, where the release of chromic acid resulted in extensive hexavalent chromium, antimony, arsenic and nickel contamination of the vadose and saturated environment. The impacted groundwater plume extended from the former site under adjacent streets, a park and into the surrounding residential area.
A series of bench tests established that the best reagent to remediate the contaminants was a suspension of nano-scale ferrous sulfide particles in an aqueous solution of polysulfide. Remediation of the vadose zone down to the water table at 15 feet was achieved using soil blending techniques which enabled the in situ application of the ferrous sulfide reagent. In situ remediation of groundwater was achieved by introducing via pressure injection the ferrous sulfide slurry through a grid-based system of borings across the footprint of the plume.
Confirmative soil samples collected from the vadose zone showed that no samples had detectable hexavalent chromium and other contaminants had been geochemically fixated. Confirmation sampling of groundwater indicated complete remediation of nickel by the first quarter sampling event. In addition, groundwater sampling also demonstrated that chromium and antimony had been remediated to project cleanup objectives after 5 quarters of sampling. Detections of arsenic in groundwater at concentrations slightly above cleanup objectives still persist; however, detections are isolated and have decreased by orders of magnitude. Current results will be presented as part of the paper.
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AcuityES Adds Another!
January 31st, 2012
AcuityES is excited to add Chris Sloffer to the team. As an assistant project manager, Mr. Sloffer will be getting his hands dirty – literally – on client projects.
Mr. Sloffer has an intriguing background as having grown up in Bloomington, Indiana and graduating from Indiana University, Twice. What’s most interesting is the time spent between degrees.
Mr. Sloffer shares that “I received my undergraduate degree in Physics from IU, and then joined the Peace Corps to teach Physics and Chemistry at a high school in the South Pacific. While living on a small island, I became intrigued with clean water environmental issues.” Upon Mr. Sloffer’s stateside return, he enrolled at IU to pursue graduate studies in environmental science with a concentration in environmental chemistry, toxicology and risk assessment, and later earned a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager (CHMM) credential.
Mr. Sloffer’s experiences have required his active role in investigation of environmental sites throughout Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. He has also been on the front lines of multiple remediation projects of varying size and scope, including remediation via ERH (electrical resistive heating).
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US Builders Review highlights AcuityES
November 30th, 2011
AcuityES was recently featured in US Builder’s Review (see the entire edition here; AcuityES‘s article is featured on page 131.) US Builder’s Review is a nationally recognized trade publication read by a targeted audience of general contractors, developers and other leaders in the construction industry. AcuityES is considered a vital resource for construction projects to determine the environmental well-being (or possible remediation) of a site.
Download the PDF of the article here: Acutiy_USBR_Summer2011
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AcuityES adds Jim Rouse to address HEAVY METALS
November 17th, 2011
AcuityES is adding to our breadth and depth of expertise to provide our clients with better environmental assessment and remediation solutions.
Services to the Mining, Timber Preservation and Plating Industries can range from the inclusion of geochemical protection in the design of new facilities, better operational understanding of monitoring data at operational sites, and cost-effective, environmentally-appropriate remediation techniques of contamination both while the facility is in operation and during closure. For the most part, these remedial activities will be in-situ in nature, duplicating the natural reactions that bind metals and radionuclides into minimally-soluble minerals.
Steve Irvin, Principal at AcuityES, has a simple philosophy when it comes to expanding AcuityES’s reach. “We saw the opportunity to add Jim (Jimmy) Rouse to our team as a major expansion of Acuity’s expertise. Not just for his first-person work and experience; but as a way to proliferate his focus on in situ remediation techniques to remediate dissolved mobile metals, metalloids and radionuclides often found in mining operations; plating facilities; automotive industry sites and timber-preservation facilities; Jim is an internationally recognized expert in these areas. He brings us the technical and practical depth to lift AcuityES’s solution offerings even further.”
Mr. Rouse has 50 years of relevant experience, including 17 years with various Federal agencies and 33 years as a consultant to industry throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, Scotland and New Zealand. He is internationally known for his work on the subsurface behavior of heavy metals and radionuclides, and has developed innovative approaches for in-situ remediation of metals, especially hexavalent chromium, in soil and ground water. Mr. Rouse has authored more than 50 publications, dealing with the subject of natural and man-aided attenuation of heavy metals; radiochemicals; cyanide contamination; and vadose zone monitoring. He has made a number of presentations to technical meetings and taught numerous short courses. He has been qualified as an expert witness approximately 30 times, in the area of heavy metal and radiochemical migration and remediation.
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AcuityES Adds Another Solution Option
August 22nd, 2011
AcuityES has added yet another tool to its toolbox in attacking environmentally contaminated Sites. In Situ (i.e., in place) remediation of contaminated soils and groundwater has proven to be an effective option for many Sites impacted with metalloids, solvents, or petroleum. However, an extremely important key to successful In Situ remediation is the ability to place the In Situ reagent into direct contact with either the contaminated soil or groundwater.
AcuityES developed a variable pressure/variable volume subsurface injection system that is chemically compatible with a wide range of remediation reagents from chemical oxidizers and reducers to microbial augmentations. The AcuityES injection system is designed to be mounted directly onto the side of drilling/probe equipment and utilizes the existing hydraulics of the drilling unit to minimize the size of the pump system and increase its overall efficiency. The AcuityES pump system displays and records real-time information such as temperature, pressure, flow-rates, and totalized flow which are crucial data to manage the successful administration of reagents into the subsurface.
The AcuityES injection system has been successfully used at several Sites for remediation of hexavalent chromium, antimony, arsenic and chlorinated solvents (TCE, DCE and VC).
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AcuityES Appears in IBJ’s 2011 Book of Lists
March 7th, 2011
The annual rite of passage that is the Indianapolis Business Journal’s (IBJ) Book of Lists is upon us … Acuity Environmental Solutions checked in at #9 in the Indianapolis market for “Largest Environmental Contractors.” We owe our sincerest respect and gratitude to all of our clients, employees and contractors for making this all possible. Here’s to hoping we continue the march up the list in 2012.
Sincere thanks!
- Steve Irvin, principal engineer
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AcuityES at Sustainable Remediation Conf. (Amherst)
December 15th, 2010
AcuityES’s own Rich Christensen will be presenting an abstract covering “InSitu Geochemical Reduction of Hexavalent Chromium Using Nanoscale Iron Sulfide Derived from Industrial By-Products” at the 27th Annual International Conference Sustainable Remediation event on June 1-3, 2011 in Amherst, Massachusetts.
From the University of Massachusetts’ Web site:
The June 1-3, 2011 International Conference Sustainable Remediation 2011: State of the Practice will address the themes of green chemistry, human health, and environmental and emergency response. Session presentations by scientists, practitioners, and regulators will feature new research, field applications, and lessons learned. The three-day conference will kick off with a Plenary Session with keynote presentations from leading researchers and regulatory experts who will provide an overview of the sustainable remediation landscape and address research needs, policy and regulatory challenges moving forward. The conference will feature more than 70 platform presentations, posters (featuring a special student poster competition) and many exhibitors, offering ample opportunities for networking. The 2010 Green Remediation Conference attracted hundreds of attendees (academia, government, non-profit, and private sector) from 16 countries and 31 States. The conference co-hosts are EPA’s Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation and The Environmental Institute at UMass Amherst.
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AcuityES Presenting at AEHS (San Diego)
November 11th, 2010
AcuityES’s own Rich Christensen will be presenting a paper at 21st Annual International Conference on Soils, Sediments, Water, and Energy. The conference will run from March 14 – 17 2011 in San Diego, CA. The paper is titled In Situ Chemical Reduction of Hexavalent Chromium in Soils and Groundwater Using Ferrous Sulfide (FeS) Nanotechnology.
For more information, please visit the AEHS Foundation website.
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AcuityES Presenting at RemTec (Chicago)
November 11th, 2010
AcuityES’s own Ray Milejczak will be presenting a paper at RemTec in Chicago. The summit runs from May 16 – 19, 2011.
From the RemTec Summit website:
The RemTEC Summit delivers a truly unique platform focused on advancing the environmental science and remediation industry. It is the place where you can hear essential sources of information on technology, application and policy affecting contaminated site restoration field from the world’s leading experts within the academic, regulatory, industry and environmental-consulting communities.
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Where did the SeaBreeze go?
August 12th, 2010
Since 2002, SeaBreeze Technologies, LLC (SeaBreeze) has done extremely well in the “Environmental Solutions” game, but the name simply had to go … welcome to Acuity Environmental Solutions (or AcuityES for short)!
SeaBreeze as a company completed numerous successful projects for clients all across the nation. This experience has allowed the company to grow in both our reputation and expertise … but from a marketing sense, the name SeaBreeze failed us when we wanted to talk about our awesome story … which is the process we use in striving to ask the right questions in any environmental situation. Our changes are not in name alone. We have moved to a new address (still in Fishers, Indiana); added new staff; and expanded the depth and expertise of our services.
So, while Shakespeare opined that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, our branding guy disagreed. A lot.
So, here we stand at a new beginning to a sound legacy … waiting to tell the story about how we “dig deeper”.
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