Sand County Environmental, Inc., is a nationally-recognized environmental engineering firm providing a full array of phytoremediation and traditional remediation solutions to private and public service sectors. Our work is most often conducted for owners of landfills, lenders, retail and wholesale agricultural chemical storage facilities, local and state governments, and other property owners where soil, groundwater, or stormwater management issues are of concern.
While remediating a historic fertilizer site along the Missouri River, Sand County Environmental’s excavation crew discovered stained soil with a petroleum odor. Soil samples revealed the source as a decades-old diesel fuel release. Fertilizer remediation continued while a collaborative plan was created between Sand County Environmental, the client, and the state regulatory agency. We considered bioremediation techniques, but due to time limitations the client opted to excavated petroleum soil and dispose of it in a landfill. While the unexpected finding provided staging issues and an interesting wrinkle in the original project, Sand County pivoted as needed and completed the petroleum excavation in accordance with the client’s and regulatory agency’s requests.
Late last summer, prior to the beginning of the school year, Sand County Environmental completed the rehabilitation of a constructed wetland for wastewater treatment at a high school in southeastern Wisconsin. The design life of the media within a constructed wetland is approximately 20 years, and after this time, filter media may need to be replaced and replanted to maintain adequate effluent flow and treatment. During this rehabilitation, only 20% of the media required replacement. The rehab was completed without damage to the wetland geomembrane liner. The inlet piping was upgraded with more durable materials to ensure a longer life for the system. Then, the system was replanted with a native prairie grass seed mix. Future system rehabilitation will not be required for at least another two decades.
Sand County Environmental recently permitted, constructed, and has been monitoring phytoremediation and mycoremediation research studies alongside the University of California-Riverside at a former railroad maintenance facility in Los Angeles, California. The site is known to have soils impacted by diesel fuel, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic chemicals, and heavy metals. The study is being completed to evaluate the survivability and efficacy of phytoremediation and mycoremediation at the site. A combination of rhizodegradation, phytoextraction, and sequestration phytotechnologies are currently being employed at this complex site. While collection, tabulation, and analysis of results is on-going, many of the trees planted at the site, with some of the tree species coming from our phytoremediation plantation, are growing exceptionally well. This is the first plantation of its kind in southern California, and the initial results are promising for implementing more plantations like it within the region. We look forward to continuing with this study, as well as the results it will provide!
