Remediation Construction Services at East Coast Refinery

Client Challenge

Situated in a major metropolitan area, this refinery operates 24/7/365 with more than 800 employees. The facility, which produces transportation fuels, petrochemical feedstocks, and fuel oils, has active shipping, trucking, pipeline, and rail operations on site. Environmental compliance and remediation needs are expansive and varied. GES supports the facility’s compliance program with a dedicated program team providing diverse environmental consulting and technical field services.

GES Solution

GES recently completed a project to replace a 24-acre landfill cap system, which was no longer compliant with state environmental regulations. A new low-permeability cap was designed to lower the water table below the solidified materials and establish an inward hydraulic gradient toward a sludge lagoon. GES managed and executed this project with a focus on safety, security, schedule, and financial controls. The design and construction team included a number of consultants and contractors, and involved oversight of both union and non-union labor on site.

Before beginning field work, planning activities were coordinated with the design team to ensure the most effective and safe construction approach. Tasks included development and refinement of the site management plan, health and safety plan, earthwork plan, soil erosion and sediment control plan, and construction quality assurance plan. With safety the top priority, GES provided training and ongoing supervision of all project personnel, including contractor oversight and a short-service worker mentoring program to keep all workers safe.

Implementation was carefully staged and managed to coordinate with facility operations and seasonal constraints. The first step was to construct a temporary entrance and haul road along with a soil staging and handling area to minimize any disruption to ongoing facility operations. Following a stripping of six inches of soil over the 24-acre site, regrading was completed to guide rainwater to the stormwater swales. The new liner system was carefully installed over 15.2 acres and top seeding completed over the remaining 8.7 acres. Monitoring wells and piezometers were installed within fill and artificial turf areas to improve the ability to monitor ongoing compliance. A new road, constructed across the lined area, will allow access to the site while protecting the cap from inadvertent damage.

Client Value

The phased construction project was completed within two years, in accordance with initial schedule estimates, to regain regulatory compliance. The work was carefully managed to ensure that there was no disturbance to the underlying solidified sludge layer throughout on-site activities. More importantly, there were no OSHA recordable incidents with over 33,000 field hours worked.