BC Chooses Bituminous Geomembrane
A former copper mining site that has polluted waters in British Columbia, Canada, will be capped with a bituminous geomembrane as part of the site's $4.5 million remediation project. The project will cleanup copper leachate from now through 2010 and clean soil on top of the cap will be planted with vegeation. The end result will be not just safe land and water but a situation for replenishing Vancouver Island's fish stocks.
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Steve Eckhart Returns to GSE
Houston-based GSE Lining Technology has announced the appointment of Steve Eckhart to the Vice President of Sales & Marketing, North American Operations position. Mr. Eckhart is an industry veteran with more than 20 years of experience. He has worked for GSE before and is well-familiar with its product lines and applications expertise. Congratulations are due to him on his appointment, and a warm welcome back.
Piped In
The availability of natural gas pipelines is crucial to the profitability of large dairies converting manure into power in the Midwest. But with more pipelines being built across rural areas to connect major urban zones, the connection points are increasing. In states like Wisconsin, that's helping transform farms with lined lagoons into power centers. Expedited permitting is also helping.
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Rio Rancho Landfill Expansion
Waste Management Inc. is seeking to renew its Rio Rancho, New Mexico landfill permit for 10 years, after which time the current site would be closed. However, in order to accommodate trash until then and have time to locate a new site, WMI is also asking for approval to significantly increase the vertical height of storage. Town meetings continue.
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Countrywide Update: Cap Ordered
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has ordered a dual clay and geosynthetic cap be installed on the beleaguered Stark County, Ohio landfill. The Countrywide facility has suffered from underground fires for the past couple years. The solution to cap the site was ordered on Friday, April 11.
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Aquaculture and Income
For communities dependent upon fishing for their economic health in Malaysia, the monsoon season can be a serious challenge. It takes away up to three months of income each year. But a new indoor aquaculture plan will allow year-round fish farming, with the aquaculture operations supplementing the wild catch operations.
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Increasing Volume
Operators of the RMU-1 hazardous waste landfill near Niagra Falls, New York have abandoned their request for a height expansion on the current cell in favor of having a geosynthetic lining system approved for a future RMU-2 cell. The use of geosynthetics over a simple (and rather thick) clay-only liner would save considerable space, thus adding the volume the old design did not possess.
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Access Roads for Wind Farms
The UK publication Building has published an article about the challenges of Europe's largest onshore wind farm--and the problem isn't wind. It's building 90km of access roads on peat and other tricky soils at 22-sq-mile site. The solution is a combination of geotextiles and geogrids for separation and reinforcement. It's precisely the approach being adopted everywhere that windfarms are being constructed, and for good reason: it works.
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CETCO's Olympic Project
Environmental Daily Interactive has published a number of photos and some project information from CETCO's latest completed project for the Beijing Olympics. The Beijing Olympic Forest Park Lake was lined with 550,000 sq m of Bentomat geosynthetic clay liner (GCL). The liner provides a containment zone over the natural gritstone floor.
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Vreba-Hoff Expands in Indiana
Concentrated, or Confined, Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) are contentious. They put big business over the small farm; and they produce a significantly higher amount of animal waste. But companies such as Vreba-Hoff are developing them quickly. The more advanced lagoon designs, including liners, are safer, and many counties are starting to welcome the economic influx. V-H has 11 CAFOs planned for Indiana alone.
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Mining Remains Strong
Despite slowing demand in the US, the mining and metals sector is expected to remain strong for Eurpoean groups, reports Thomson Financal Network. Demand in China and India will help keep mining commodities prices--iincluding gold, copper and silver--high. Those prices also influence new developments, and they'll require significant environmental controls, such as leach pad liners.
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Upgrading Waste Management
India's boom comes with a stiff challenge to the environment. The old waste management system was not designed for the current breakneck growth in construction and affluence (which generally leads to more waste). In the city of Mangalore, a new landfill will feature one of the country's most modern designs, including an HDPE liner, stabilization ponds, and much more.
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Fly by Day and Night
A massive fly ash landfill is to be located along a river in Connecticut. The proposal is causing considerable debate. The fly ash will come from garbage-to-energy plants--which themselves are supposed to alleviate landfill pressures. State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) officials are now working to educate the public on the advanced liner and drainage system planned for the site.
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Aquaculture in Victoria
The Brumby government in Victoria, Australia aims to increase its aquaculture industry by nearly 200% in the next 7 years. The current industry is valued at $22 million. The government would like to see a $60 million industry by 2015. This will require significant investment in new ponds, cages, curtains, raceways and much more.
Learn more here.;
St. Lucia Project
In the Caribbean, the island of St. Lucia is constructing an aquaculture facility to move towards a more sustainable capacity. A number of ponds are already in use around the island. The more advanced facility being built will help establish a larger presence for building stocks and linking together the scattered pond network.
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GMF Delivers $2.2 Million to Guelph
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) has announced that the Green Municipal Fund (GMF) will invest $2.2 million for the City of Guelph. The sustainability projects include remediation of a former metal foundry for site redevelopment, waste management and wastewater treatment.
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Superfund Site to Be Capped
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has reached agreements with a waste management firm and a developer that will result in the final capping and redevelopment of the 87-acre PJP Landfill Superfund site in Jersey City.
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Milwaukee's Urban Fish Plan
Everything's gone green, it seems. In Milwaukee, an Urban Aquaculture Center (UAC) is being developed to promote sustainable aquaculture and agriculture practices in the city and in the Midwestern United States. Molly Snyder Edler's article offers a peak at the prototype venture…though it seems there's a typo regarding the facility's proposed square footage.
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Guyana's Biggest Sector
The small South American nation of Guyana has numerous natural resources in demand, such as gold and diamonds; but it is also plentiful in shrimp and fish, two other natural resources in ever-rising demand. With international backing, Guyana seeks to make aquaculture its biggest economic sector by 2015 through rapid expansion of pond capacity.
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Coffer Dams
Coffer dams that use geosynthetic material over frames--operating more like an impervious barrier than turbidity curtains--seldom make it into general discussions of flood defenses, but that may change. They are being used more in the central United States with so much flooding in Missouri and Arkansas.
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Mother Earth and EPDM
Mother Earth News is encouraging the use of EPDM geomembrane liners for backyard ponds. A current article describes the basic steps one needs to take to create a water-saving and wildlife-encouraging pond. EPDM liners from manufacturers such as Firestone are applied not just on small-scale home use but larger scale use by industry, golf courses, fish hatcheries and other environments.
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Geotextile Tubes: too Simple?
Canada's Daily Observer reports on the incorporation of geotextile tubes for sewage dewatering operations, and about the difficult path to getting this simple idea accepted. Many officials apparently have been concerned that the technology's function is too easy to understand to be believed effective. But the use of geotextiles tubes for separating solids is finally getting its day and correcting many of Ontario's sewage handling issues.
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New Lagoon Needed
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has fined a large Bay County dairy farm for illegal drainage. The 350-head dairy has been ordered to pay a $4,000 fine and develop a new manure lagoon to better management the herd's waste.
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Harmonizing Aquaculture Standards
In the United States, aquaculture standards are differ, at times considerably, from state to state. But a new plan to harmonize the field's standards within the country is gaining key support, such as from the National Aquaculture Association (NAA).
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Agriculture in Africa
The African Development Bank (AfDB), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and the World Bank today called for an increase in funding and a renewed focus on agricultural water management in Africa, including irrigation, drainage and rainwater harvesting.
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