Sustainable solution to groundwater and soil contamination

Pulsed injection technology used

Coffey Environments has over 15 years of experience in the injection of chemical amendments into contaminated groundwater and lithologies across a broad range of contaminated sites throughout Australia. The company recently acquired the only licence in Australasia for Wavefront Primawave pulsed injection technology that has been demonstrated to improve amendment injection efficiency. To complement this new technology, the company developed a Remediation Amendment Injection Device (RAID) to provide a more effective chemical amendment delivery system that is claimed to provide higher success rates and safer injection events.

Coffey Environments’ Team Leader for Remediation, Nick Lawrence, explains it took knowledge from more than 100 injection projects, and research around the world, to develop the solution.

“We’d been investing in improving our injection systems continuously over the last 15 years.

“We became interested in the Primewave injection technology when we learned of Brownfield sites in the US that had a 75% decrease in the number of injection points, saving more than one month in the field and more than 40% of the remedial costs.

“This new pulsed injection technology, along with our mobile RAID system, has had incredible results. We used the system on many remediation sites with differing geologies and hydrological characteristics being impacted by a range of contaminants.

“Using real-time data logging of injection parameters from our RAID system, we are able to ensure more accurate and reliable distribution of amendments into the target areas. We can inject into four wells at one time and monitor critical parameters at each point. Ultimately, this means an accelerated pathway to closure of groundwater contamination issues.

“The pulsed injection technology increases the radius of injection, improving the amendment distribution into the ground,” he stated.

During injection Coffey’s RAID system provides multipoint real-time monitoring for injection pressures, flow rates and totalised injectate. This information, in addition to water quality parameters, levels and vapour emissions surrounding the injection points is vital in determining the effectiveness of the injection works. Post injection follow-up monitoring also provides key information to validate outcomes and confirm achievement of remedial objectives.