Containment

Military efforts along the Gulf Coast continue today as part of the federal response force to clean up the oil spill. About 1,900 Defense Department and associated personnel are deployed to the Gulf. They are providing ongoing support to contain the leak and clean up the spill, including military-owned skimmers and pollution control equipment. The American Forces Press Services has published a piece that shows one of the many ways the military is combatting the oil spill: through the installation of separation and erosion controlling geotextile underlay with rock wall berms.

The 15th Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (XV PCSMGE) takes place 15 – 18 November 2015 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. PCSMGE delivers one of the...

Erosion along the Brahmaputra River in India has reaped considerable disaster in the past 15 years. An article in the Assam Tribune indicates that erosion has claimed 28 villages, one police station, eight schools, four tea estates, one PWD road and wide stretches of agricultural land. A new project aims to stem some of that erosion by installing geotextile bags along multiple kms of the riverbank. Learn more here.;

The interest in the biomass potential of algae continues to swell. The European Society of Microalgal Biotechnology (ESMB), the German DLG e.V. (German Agricultural Society) and DLG BENELUX from the Netherlands have agreed to organize the 5th International Algae Conference, to be held 1-2 December 2011 in Berlin, Germany. The event will primarily focus on biomass potential and the various industries that can benefit from it. Learn more here.;

Combining the efforts of two industry leaders in remediation technologies promises to provide increased value to the environmental remediation industry. Tensar International Corporation (TIC) announced today that it has signed an agreement with CETCO Remediation Technologies (CETCO) granting exclusive distribution rights to the Triton® Marine Mattress System in the United States and Canada for subaqueous capping of contaminated sediments.

The Indian government is making a couple of moves to improve its nation's aquaculture industry by compelling better practice. Shrimp farms have until April 1 to register officially with the Coastal Aquaculture Authority (CAA) or they will not be eligible to export their goods. Also, shrimp farmers will be required to submit antibiotic-free certification from the ELISA labs approved by the Marine Products Export Development Authority. MPEDA reports that less than half of the 17,000 shrimp farms have registered with the CAA. Learn more here.;

ASTM International, together with the Bombay Textile Research Association (BTRA), will conduct a one-day workshop on geotextiles on 22 January 2013, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at BTRA's facilities in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. This free technical workshop will feature two speakers: Sam Allen, vice-president of TRI/Environmental Inc. and a longtime member of ASTM Committee D35 on Geosynthetics; and V.K. Patil, senior scientific officer in charge of the geotextile lab at BTRA. Learn more.

The newly created, 160-acre Royal Palm Beach Commons Park in Florida has been constructed on a former golf course. When the tee boxes and greens were excavated, arsenic-contaminated soil had to be stockpiled. Arsenic was part of the herbicides used on the course for many years. Now, the soil is contained on an 18-foot-high mound behind a residential home. A 20-mil liner has been installed for containment. Residents want the arsenic soil moved, but the city says it would be too expensive. Learn more here.;

A storage system was required to retain 91 cubic metres of stormwater runoff for a parking lot. Due to space restrictions at this Mount Albert, Ontario site, a stormwater management pond was not feasible. The solution? A total of 73 Triton S-29 chambers were supplied by Terrafix and installed in less than a day with overall installation (excavation, stone placement, chamber installation, backfilling) taking less than a week to complete. Learn more here.;

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has modified the Record of Decision (ROD) for the Simplot Plant Operable Unit (Simplot OU) of the Eastern Michaud Flats Superfund site. Among the project activities will be the installation of a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) liner on top of the phosgypsum pile, which is known as the "gypstack," to minimize process water infiltration through the gypstack and into groundwater.

terrafix® has made substantial updates to the engineering information in its annual Winter Seminar Series, making this year's offerings more important even for those who have attended previously....

The largest contracted installer of geosynthetic lining materials in the United States, Environmental Specialties International, has added Ryan Bunch to its team as Project Manager. Bunch brings something quite...

Raven Industries released strong third quarter results on Wednesday. The Flow Controls Division continues to perform well while the Engineered Films Division (which includes Raven's geomembrane lines) saw 23 percent growth in third quarter sales. Raw material costs (including the often volatile resin market) pinched some profit, but overall volume was good and high demand in the oil and gas industry for pit and pond liners continued to be one of the company's signature successes. Learn more here.;

The Geosynthetics Interest Group of South Africa (GIGSA)—a chapter of the International Geosynthetics Society—has a strong history of supporting educational endeavors. The chapter’s support comes in the way of...

Geosynthetica is proud to welcome Plastatech Engineering Ltd as its latest Silver Underwriter. Plastatech is an expert manufacturer of various film and sheet materials, including the PlastaFlex line of geomembrane products. Learn more about the company's materials and expertise on the Plastatech website, www.plastatech.com. Learn more here.;

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated its RE-Powering Mapping and  Screening Tool, which will now provide preliminary screening results for renewable energy potential at 66,000,...

In the 1990s*, geosynthetic material development, polymeric research, and wide-scale manufacturing advances helped the field mature quickly. Regulatory support, such as the RCRA Subtitle D rule from the US...

The US Army Corps of Engineers recently completed the installation of sand-filled geotextile tubes along the 1.5-mile beachfront in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Now, additional sand will be pumped in and grass installed to conclude the erosion control and beach stabilization work. Learn more here.;

Over at the Fabricated Geomembrane Institute's (FGI) website, the latest blog entry notes that the FGI's Tim Stark visited CLI/Clearwater Construction during a visit to the Denver area recently. The FGI is hosting a short course there on October 23. Dr. Stark is beginning to tour about and visit the Institute's members. FGI formed officially earlier this year after the PVC Geomembrane Institute (PGI) completed its core goals. Learn more here.;

Maccaferri, a leading provider of Civil Engineering and Environmental solutions for over 130 years, has developed the MacDam™ to control ash and fine sediment runoff on burned or barren slopes. Fire is an ever present force in forests and rangeland and is an important natural process in the renewal of ecosystems. However, as human populations expand, people and their homes, businesses and public infrastructure are not only threatened by the incidence of natural and man-induced wildfires, but ultimately areas affected by fire can succumb to a secondary disaster resulting from the erosion of barren soils.

The annual geo-congress of the Geo-Institute of ASCE is being held in West Palm Beach, Florida right now. This is an almost unfairly convenient location for Geosynthetica, as we are headquartered in West Palm Beach (about 1 mile from the conference site). Last night, the exhibit hall opened with a reception for GeoFlorida attendees. Elizabeth Peggs has posted some photos from the exhibit hall opening.

By NAUE – After more than 50 years of operation, the Hohenwarte II pumped storage facility near Saalfeld/Thuringia had seen many changes both in the ways in which the...

Following the historic and overwhelmingly bipartisan passage in the US House and Senate of the Water Resources Reform and Development Act (WRRDA), Geosynthetica’s Chris Kelsey talked to Boyd Ramsey,...

Year-over-year earnings reports show how far the global plastics industry has come since the start of 2009, with plastics titans Dow, ExxonMobil Chemical, and BASF showing double-digit gains in sales and volumes, even in Western economies that had heretofore lagged. Read more at Plastics Today. Learn more here.;

Earlier this year, Solmax took on a very hot topic with a free webinar: managing geomembrane wrinkles. This session followed the discussion created by a Geosynthetic Institute webinar in which Dr....