Base-wide Environmental System Management
Client Challenge
Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point is an active 29,000-acre jet base with a 75-year aviation history, an ongoing mission to provide a combat-ready aerial striking force, and a massive runway system with complex operations. The base has a comprehensive environmental remediation program in place.
GES Solution
GES was contracted in 2012 to assume on-site operation, monitoring, and management (OM&M) activities of the base’s UST remediation program. Many of the remediation systems are tied into the facility’s industrial waste treatment sewer system, requiring extensive monitoring, communication, and coordination among contractors and base administration offices.
GES operates a fully-staffed office at the base, with responsibility for the OM&M of 11 unique active remediation systems and seven inactive remediation sites. GES staff routinely works amid active military operations with no disruption to base activities. Areas under remediation range from less than one acre to more than thirty acres. Remedial approaches include surfactant injection and recirculation, soil vapor extraction, air sparge, groundwater pump and treat, aggressive fluid vapor recovery, product recovery, pulse-biosparge, and aerobic biodegradation.
Our focus is on safe operations, operational efficiency, and progressing sites to closure. GES adheres to the remedy-specific OM&M plan and O&M manual for each individual system, with an eye on potential improvements. Long-term monitoring of subsurface conditions is maintained via regular collection of gauging data and semi-annual sampling data. Functional improvements have included standardization of all O&M equipment to allow for easier, more cost-effective operation, and evaluation of system operating data to implement process optimizations that lower operating costs and increase remediation effectiveness. All staff members are engaged in GES’ LPS behavior-based safety program and receive regular training to stay current with GES engineering and operational procedures as well as base requirements.
Client Value
GES has been responsible for the remediation systems for five years, during which time five of 18 sites have been closed or are in petition for closure, and three active remediation sites have been transitioned to Monitored Natural Attenuation. GES has improved base sustainability by recycling all product recovered by the remediation systems, collecting and blending it to detailed specifications for use in the air station’s main heating plant. Working on an active military installation provides many unique health and safety challenges, and GES has achieved a record of no OSHA accidents or environmental incidents in over five years.