The National Park Rapid Plume Assessment showcases the efficiency of LiORA Trends real-time modeling, utilizing 8 sensors to deliver critical insights in a fraction of the time. Get insights on your plume immediately rather than years or decades.

This case study highlights significant savings from risk-based closure strategies, achieving $400,000 in sampling costs with the deployment of 16 sensors + LiORA Insights over just two years.

Remediation methods, such as soil vapour extraction and in situ chemical oxidation are challenging in cold, low-permeability conditions, highlighting the need for alternative approaches. Using naturally occurring microorganisms to deplete hydrocarbons is attractive. However, it is challenging to repeatably execute this remediation technique successfully across multiple sites due to nuanced site mineralogies.

Natural Source Zone Depletion (NSZD) refers to microbial and physical processes that reduce hydrocarbon content in the subsurface. Microorganisms degrade hydrocarbons deep in the soil and rapidly deplete available oxygen and other electron acceptors in the soil and groundwater.  At that point, microorganisms begin to ferment hydrocarbons, producing organic acids. These organic acids are used by a group of microorganisms called methanogens, which consume these organic acids and release methane. The methane migrates towards the upper layers of soil, where another group of organisms, called methanotrophs, consume the methane and release carbon dioxide as a product.

An active petroleum hydrocarbon pipeline site had 20,000 m³ of impact and an initial plume area of 8,100 m²  based on an environmental consulting firm’s Phase II Environmental Assessment. An active recovery program over five (5) years had recovered approximately 14% of the released product but was discontinued due to declining extraction efficiencies with high operating costs.

The textbook approach to new or legacy spills is to ensure that you have a vertical and horizontal delineation of the pollutants. This understanding of how deep and wide your pollutant has travelled is essential before you can begin any remediation, restoration, or reclamation process. The rationale for this approach is that we should not begin a remediation process until we have enough information to ensure that it can be successful. Thus, we carefully assess a site, set data quality objectives, and carefully plan out the goal of a remediation program.