Company News & Events

March 2008.  TerraTherm supports Nashua River Watershed Association as a Corporate Member.

The Nashua River Watershed Association (NRWA) works to create a healthy Nashua River watershed ecosystem with clean water and open space for human and wildlife communities, where people work together to sustain mutual economic and environmental well being.  The Nashua River watershed is located in north central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, 31 communities connected by water.  TerraTherm's CEO, Ralph Baker, has served as a NRWA Director since September 2006.

January 2008.  TerraTherm Awarded a 2007 Business Achievement Award by the Environmental Business Journal

TerraTherm, Inc. was awarded a 2007 Business Achievement Award/Project Merit:Remediation and Restoration Award by the Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) for the successful completion of a major in situ thermal remediation project in fractured rock. The 2007 awards will be presented at EBJ's 6th annual Environmental Industry Summit in Coronado, California on February 20, 2008.

EBJ awarded TerraTherm the following Project Merit Award:

TerraTherm, for completing a major remediation project in the Southeast using its proprietary In-Situ Thermal Desorption (ISTD) technology to treat dense non-aqueous-phase liquids (DNAPLs) in fractured rock. The goal was to remove trichloroethane (TCE) from the upper 75 feet of an 87-foot treatment zone and achieve mean TCE concentrations of less than 60 micrograms per kilogram (µg/kg). Pretreatment concentrations had been 81 million µg/kg. Using ISTD, which combines thermal conduction heating with vapor recovery, TerraTherm treated the site for a period of 120 days, achieving temperatures at the boiling point of water throughout the treatment zone and removing 12,000 lbs. of VOCs. The firm says that it achieved its cleanup goals with energy costs of only $12 per cubic yard of soil treated.  

October 24 - 31, 2007  TerraTherm is named the Environmental Business Journal's Business Achiever of the Week.

January 2007.  TerraTherm Awarded a 2006 Business Achievement Award by the Environmental Business Journal

TerraTherm, Inc. was awarded a 2006 Business Achievement Award/Project Merit Award by the Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) for the successful completion of a large in situ thermal remediation project at a wood treatment site. The 2006 awards will be presented at EBJ's 5th annual Environmental Industry Summit in Coronado, California on February 28, 2007.

EBJ awarded TerraTherm a Project Merit Award for:

Completing the largest in situ thermal remediation project at a wood treatment site to residential cleanup standards. The site was a former utility pole treatment facility operated by Southern California Edison (SCE) 1922 to 1957. The achievement of stringent remedial goals means that the property is not subject to land use restrictions, allowing for all redevelopment opportunities, including residential housing. Unrestricted residential land use at a facility of this type had never previously been achieved with an in situ remediation method, according to TerraTherm. The only other remediation alternative deemed capable of achieving the unrestricted land use requirement was soil excavation followed by off-site incineration. A feasibility study led to the selection of TerraTherm's ISTD technology, which utilizes the simultaneous application of thermal conduction heating and vacuum to treat contaminated soil without excavation. The applied heat volatilizes organic contaminants within the soil, enabling them to be carried in the vapor stream toward heater-vacuum wells. By using the ISTD technology rather than excavation, the client saved approximately $12 million. Approximately 16,500 cubic yards of predominantly silty soil was treated to a maximum depth of 105 feet.

July 2006.  TerraTherm and AIG Engineering Group form Partnership for ISTD in the UK

In June 2006, TerraTherm, Inc. and AIG Engineering Group Limited (AIGE) concluded negotiations for AIGE to become the sub-licensee of the ISTD technology in the United Kingdom. This sublicense agreement between AIGE and TerraTherm follows the successful completion of a pilot test at the UK Atomic Energy Commission's Harwell Site. At the Harwell Site, ISTD heaters were used to thermally enhance an existing soil-vapor extraction system (TESVE). The results of this pilot test showed a substantial increase in contaminant removal with the use of ISTD heaters. A multi-year phased implementation of TESVE is planned for the Harwell Site.

ISTD is rapidly becoming recognized as one of the most effective methods of treating sites heavily contaminated with organic chemicals. By efficiently and uniformly heating the affected soil, ISTD literally cooks the contamination out of the ground, leaving behind a clean site in just a few months. The process has been utilized at numerous sites in the U.S., including for the utility and chemical industries.

AIG Engineering Group Limited is a member company of American International Group, Inc. (AIG). AIGE specializes in environmental and geotechnical consulting, turnkey remediation services, loss prevention and control advice, and Brownfield property service.

January 2006.  TerraTherm and Krüger form Partnership for ISTD in Denmark and Sweden
 
We are pleased to announce that Krüger A/S has become the first TerraTherm sub-licensee of the ISTD technology in Europe. Krüger is a division of Veolia Environnement, a French company with over 150 years of experience offering global environmental solutions for transportation, water treatment, energy services, and waste management. Krüger, a Danish company, has been providing in-situ remedial services for over 10 years in addition to its water and wastewater treatment services. Krüger A/S is specialised in the design/building of turnkey plants, the supply of standardized or modular equipment, and maintenance related services for process or drinking water, effluents and sludge treatment. Employing more than 400 staff, Krüger serves the public as well as the industrial sector in Northern Europe. TerraTherm's sublicense to Krüger grants it an exclusive right to use the proprietary In-Situ Thermal Desorption Technology (ISTD) in Denmark and Sweden. At least one pilot scale test is scheduled for 2006 at a site in Denmark.

Equipment and services utilizing proprietary ISTD technology in Denmark and Sweden will incorporate the new TerraTherm Technology logo: 

January 2006.  TerraTherm Selected for ISTD Design and Implementation in Denmark

TerraTherm and NIRAS were selected as specialty contractors for what is believed to be the worst chemical disposal site in Denmark, Cheminova Hoefde 42, a complex pesticide landfill in sand dunes at the shore of the North Sea. During the 1950s and 60s, thousands of drums containing wastes from the production of pesticides such as parathion, malathion, MCPP, and DDT were placed in a shallow, unlined disposal pits. For decades, contamination seeping from the pit known as "Hoefde 42" contaminated the shoreline and led to a total ban on fishing for seafood within tens of miles of the site - the locals regularly encountered hundreds of fish belly-up in the shallow fjords, and numerous fishermen and locals fell ill with contaminant-induced diseases. Now, the Danish EPA and Ringkoebing Amt (the local authority) have taken control of the disposal site and will be testing the most promising in-situ remediation methods. NIRAS and TerraTherm were awarded the contract for evaluating the thermal remediation options, including hot water circulation, steam injection, electrical resistance heating, and thermal conduction heating. Laboratory studies will be conducted in 2006. Pilot testing of the most promising methods is planned for 2007, followed by full-scale remediation.

December 2005.  ISTD Pilot Test Completed at a Fractured Rock Site in the UK 
TerraTherm's first demonstration in fractured rock was completed at the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Harwell site in England, where disposal pits above a chalk layer have led to serious DNAPL contamination. Remediation of fractured rock sites impacted by non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) such as chlorinated solvents and oils presents a unique challenge because the source zone can contain both residual and pooled NAPL in open fractures, as well as aqueous phase contaminants that have diffused into the rock matrix. The Harwell pilot test was completed by AIG and TerraTherm in December 2005, with promising results. TerraTherm is in the process of performing further data evaluation of this site.

November 2005.  Cleanup of High Profile Brownfields Site 
TerraTherm is pleased to announce the recent on time and on budget cleanup of an important, high profile Brownfields site, contaminated with CVOCs and DNAPL, located in Richmond, CA directly on San Francisco Bay. The project was successfully completed using TerraTherm's proprietary, quick and clean, In-Situ Thermal Desorption (ISTD) process. Because of the robust and predictable nature of ISTD's heating and contaminant removal mechanisms, low residential goals were easily achieved. This allowed the City of Richmond (the owner of the property) to negotiate a $5M increase in the selling price (from $8M to $13M). The total project cost, including the cost of power (2.6M kWh @ $0.16 per kWh), was $2.1M. Thus, achieving low residential standards throughout the treatment zone using ISTD, resulted in a net gain in property value and revenue of ~$3M for the City of Richmond.

June 2005.  MGP Gasholder Cleaned without Excavation 
In 2005, TerraTherm completed a novel MGP site cleanup under a performance-based contract with National Grid at their facility in North Adams, MA. The site was a former Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) facility operated by the North Adams Gas Light Company in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A 62-ft diameter by 18-ft deep gasholder tank, located entirely below grade, contained soil, debris, and coal tar, but National Grid had not been able to recover significant quantities of the coal tar and needed to clean the tank to state standards. The usual approach for such sites is to dig them up and dispose of the soil and waste off-site; however, National Grid selected TerraTherm's ISTD technology as less expensive and much greener than excavation. TerraTherm demonstrated that their choice was well justified!

December 2004.  Battelle Symposium in Baltimore, June 6-9, 2005
TerraTherm made two oral presentations at the Eighth International In Situ and On-Site Bioremediation Symposium, Baltimore, MD. Both papers focus on thermal enhancements to relatively inexpensive remedial technologies. The first summarizes work performed at the Technical University of Denmark on microbial survival and CVOC degradation after thermal treatment. The second presents thermal enhancements to existing, inefficient systems such as SVE, pump and treat, chemical oxidation, and bioremediation. 

July 2004.  TerraTherm Now Offering Steam Enhanced Extraction
TerraTherm has negotiated a license for implementation of Steam Enhanced Extraction (SEE) through the Office of Technology Licensing at University of California (UC). Now, we are able to offer thermal remediation for more permeable sites, using the SEE technology developed at UC, and implemented at 8 sites by Dr. Heron while he worked for SteamTech. This expands our offering to almost any site contaminated by organics. Particularly, we can combine SEE and ISTD to offer complete and effective heating of complex sites with significant volumes of both tight layers (clay, shale, rock) and permeable zones (sand, gravel, weathered rock).

May 24-27, 2004 (Monterey, CA)
TerraTherm's Ralph S. Baker presented papers entitled, "In-Situ Delivery of Heat by Thermal Conduction for Improved DNAPL Remediation" and "In-Situ Thermal Remediation at a Former Manufactured Gas Plant Site." TerraTherm's John Bierschenk presented a paper entitled, "Full-Scale ISTD Treatment at Former Alhambra, California Pole Yard Site." All papers were presented at the Fourth International Conference on Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds in Monterey, California. 

May 2004.  Enhance Your SVE System, and Close the Site
Thermally Enhanced Soil Vapor Extraction (TESVE) may be used to accelerate site closure where SVE systems have operated for a long time, without the site approaching its cleanup standards. Simple placement of heater borings in between existing SVE wells, and a slow and controlled heating of the recalcitrant soil layers, allows the mass removal rates to peak, and then taper off to low levels as the source zone has been depleted. This leads to closure of SVE sites within a 1 to 3 year period. We are implementing TESVE at a site in Los Angeles, California, with encouraging results. Unit treatment costs are a fraction of typical ISTD costs for similar treatment volumes.

May 2004. TerraTherm Completes Successful Cleanup of CVOCs/DNAPL at a Manufacturing Facility and Achieves Greater Than 99.9% Reductions in Contaminant Concentrations
TerraTherm, Inc. of Fitchburg, MA recently completed a successful cleanup of three separate areas at an active manufacturing facility located in the Midwest for a confidential client using it's Thermal Conduction Heating (TCH) technology, also known as In-Situ Thermal Desorption (ISTD). The facility was contaminated with Chlorinated Volatile Organic Compounds (CVOCs), including Dense Non Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPL), due to historic releases of spent solvents to a gravel parking lot and wastewater basin. The parking lot was paved in the 1980's and the wastewater basin was filled in with native soil in the 1990's.

The geology underlying the site generally consisted of very dense, glacially derived and fractured, clays and tills down to a depth of approximately 18 feet. The bulk matrix permeability of the till was 10-8 cm/s. The tills were underlain by a permeable sand and gravel unit. Although the tills were generally unsaturated (the regional water table was in the sand unit ~30 feet below the ground surface), there was a perched water table within the former wastewater basin (~3 feet below ground surface).

The total volume of soil remediated within the three source zones was 10,950 cubic yards (8,372 m3). The results indicate that attaining an interwell soil temperature of 210°F (99°C), the boiling point of water at the site, was effective in reducing CVOCs from maximum pre-treatment concentrations for trichloroethene (TCE) of 4,130 mg/kg to 0.07 mg/kg (average of 54 samples). When compared with the average pretreatment concentration for TCE of 99.74 mg/kg, this is equivalent to a >99.9% reduction in soil concentrations. The client's post-treatment sampling results indicated that all three treatment zones, even the saturated wastewater basin area, were significantly below the remedial goal for TCE of 1 mg/kg. Effective treatment of the wastewater basin area was achieved following removal of only a fraction of the water present. These results were achieved after 150 days of soil heating and provided the basis for a No Further Action (NFA) letter for soils at the site.

TerraTherm feels that ISTD/TCH heating is well suited to sites with CVOCs/DNAPLs and where low remedial standards must be met. In addition, sites with existing Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE) systems may be ideally suited for thermal enhancement and rapid closure using TCH. For more information, please contact John LaChance, Program Manager, TerraTherm, Inc., tel. (978) 343-0300.

February 8-11, 2004 (Phoenix, AZ) 
TerraTherm's Ralph S. Baker presented a paper entitled, "Full-Scale Application of In-Situ Thermal Destruction of MGP Waste in a Former Gas Holder," at the Natural Gas Technologies II Conference and Exhibition in Phoenix, Arizona. 

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SBANE chooses TerraTherm as finalist for innovation award

April 28, 2003

The New England Innovation Awards program, awarded by the Small Business Association of New England (SBANE), has chosen TerraTherm, Inc. as one of only fourteen finalists to receive this year's innovation award. SBANE recognizes companies that are not only successful but that also have shown innovation. The yearly awards program has been honoring innovative small businesses since 1986 and this year's finalists were chosen from a field of 92.

For more information on the awards, please go to: http://www.bizjournals.com