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The Worldwide Leader in Thermal Remediation |
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The Worldwide Leader in Thermal Remediation |
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Articles/Press ReleasesTerraTherm, Inc. and Gas Technology Institute Agreement Paves Way for Speedy, Permanent Cleanup of Manufactured Gas Sites (MGP), Eliminates Coal Tar Migration Fitchburg, MA, Friday, September 19, 2008- TerraTherm, Inc., a leading provider of in situ thermal remediation services and Gas Technology Institute (GTI), the leading research, development and training organization serving the natural gas industry and energy markets, today announced that they intend to partner to provide a uniquely effective and attractive remediation package to owners of the estimated 7000 worldwide MGP sites. The combination of TerraTherm's proprietary remediation technologies and GTI's patented Thermochemical Solidification (TCS) technology is expected to prove highly cost-effective in MGP gasholder cleanup, and permanently prevent coal tar migration without excavation. Negotiations are underway to establish TerraTherm as the exclusive licensee of the TCS technology. TCS, specifically designed for MGP sites, will leverage TerraTherm's Thermal Conduction Heating technology to remove organic components of the contaminants, then permanently solidify remaining coal tar in place, forming an immobile, stable substance similar to asphalt pavement. "Use of TCS stops liquid coal tar from migrating beyond property boundaries or contaminating public water supplies. This is an issue that is critically important to the owners of the sites and a major public health issue confronting communities. In developing TCS, GTI has engineered a simple and effective way to eliminate the risks of contaminant migration, reduce liability and return many of these potentially valuable urban properties to the positive side of the balance sheet. We are delighted to partner with them to bring this technology and service package to market," says Dr. Ralph Baker, CEO of TerraTherm. Baker's observations about the value of this remediation market are reinforced by the significant scope of the MGP pollution problem, and the urban location of the former manufactured gas plants. An estimated 7000 MGP plants dot the landscape of North America, the UK, Continental Europe and Japan. Built long ago on the outskirts of towns and cities, these locations are now in today's urban core. In situ remediation is a far more attractive option than excavation because these plants often lie in close proximity to, and sometimes underlie, infrastructure, commercial buildings and residential areas. "We're very excited about this agreement because it represents the potential for a high level of synergy between the two organizations," observes Quinton Ford Director, Commercialization for the Gas Technology Institute. "GTI's years of R&D experience and our focus give us a unique understanding of the needs of the utility industry and of MGP remediation. TerraTherm brings extensive field experience and know-how in cleaning up hazardous wastes using in situ techniques. They also have the equipment and proven field teams to deliver the TCS technology in a cost-effective manner. This combination will allow delivery of consistent, predictable results that the utility industry demands," adds Ford. Details on the MGP Remediation Services Package will be discussed at the upcoming MGP USA 2008 Third International Symposium and Exhibition on the Redevelopment of Manufactured Gas Plant Sites, held in Mystic Connecticut, September 23 - 28, 2008. About TerraTherm TerraTherm is a worldwide leader in the development and implementation of in-situ thermal remediation of hazardous waste. We advise on, design, build and operate thermal remediation projects from concept to closure. We offer the broadest array of thermal remediation technologies in the industry, allowing us to tailor project designs to specific site conditions, using the optimal combination of methods, without bias towards any single technology or approach. TerraTherm partners with leading engineering firms, government agencies, corporations and property owners in flexible, cooperative relationships to achieve cleanup goals. Our expertise, broad set of proven technologies and seasoned staff combine to provide the most effective cleanup available for a broad array of contaminants within all soils and site conditions. Media contact Devon Tarmasiewicz <devont@terratherm.com> About GTI GTI is a leading research, development and training organization that has been addressing the nation's energy and environmental challenges by developing technology-based solutions for consumers, industry, and government for more than 65 years. Media contact publicrelations@gastechnology.org
TerraTherm Responds to International Demand for Thermal
Technology Building upon seven years of success in deploying its In Situ Thermal Desorption (ISTD) technology, TerraTherm, Inc. (Fitchburg, Mass.), is now gearing up to meet both national and international demand for thermal approaches to remediating volatile organic compound (VOC) and semi-volatile organic compound (SVOC) contamination of soil and groundwater. Having accumulated a library of performance data to demonstrate the technical merits and cost-effectiveness of ISTD, the firm was hiring its first full-time sales person, in particular to go after the international opportunities. “We’ve definitely moved past the start-up stage,” affirms TerraTherm CEO Ralph Baker. “We’re well up the learning curve in terms of technology development and building the internal systems that start-ups don’t have, in terms of having built a repeat client base and having a technology that is proven.”
Innovative Remedial Technology Treatment Used for Southern
California Edison Facility LOS ANGELES -- Citing the need to use the best available science to hasten and reduce the cost and time for environmental cleanups, Department of Toxic Substances Control Director Maureen Gorsen today announced the “un-restricted” land use certification of the California Edison Company site located at 501 South Marengo Avenue in Alhambra. The un-restricted land use certification is DTSC most conservative and enables the property owners to pursue unrestricted development for future use of the site. Cleanup operations for this site began more than three years ago. As of March 31, 2006 all remnants of the treatment system have been removed and the established cleanup goal of 400,000 cubic feet of soil was achieved. The certification documents can be viewed www.dtsc.ca.gov In-Situ Thermal Treatment is a soil remediation process where contaminated soil is heated using vertical thermal wells within the treatment zone. As the soil is heated 95-99 percent of the contamination is destroyed in the subsurface with the remaining contamination being treated aboveground. The aboveground treatment consists of a thermal oxidizer, heat exchanger, and granular activated carbon (GAC). For this former wood treatment facility, 780 thermal wells were used to address contamination in soil at this 2.5 acre site. The 33 acre Edison site, located in Alhambra, was used from 1922 through 1957. An estimated 2.5 acres of the site was used a wood treatment facility for telephone poles and cross-arms. As a result of the wood treatment activities soils at the site became contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the preservative pentachlorophenol (PCP), and dioxins. Cleanup operations for this area began in February 2003 and as of March 31, 2006 all remnants of the treatment system have been removed. Using the innovative technology all of the cleanup goals were achieved for the approximate 440,000 cubic feet of soil treated.
Local Company Cleaning up Polluted Sites By Aaron Wasserman FITCHBURG -- The lobby of TerraTherm Inc., a six-year-old start-up company that cleans contaminated former industrial sites, features posters touting its recent projects and research. Things will be coming down soon though, as the company moves across town. Now located on the fourth floor of a converted mill on Broad Street, the company is preparing to relocate to the Montachusett Industrial Park in West Fitchburg because it needs more space to handle its operations. "These are mostly large, multi-million-dollar projects," Ralph S. Baker, TerraTherm's chief executive officer and technology manager, said of the company's work. "It's a growing business and a profitable one." Founded in 2000 with the backing of two venture-capital firms, the company employs about 15 people and may hire a few new people once it relocates across the city, Baker said. TerraTherm has been located in Fitchburg since its inception. Baker said the company was first attracted to the city because it needed inexpensive office space in its corporate infancy. But there are also nearby locations that could benefit from TerraTherm's technology, he explained. "There's just a wealth of old industrial settings that are underutilized in the area and some of them, I know, could have the need to be cleaned up," Baker said. TerraTherm takes a different approach to cleaning contaminated sites, which are also sometimes known as "brownfields" or "Superfund" sites. Brownfields are under-used former commercial or industrial sites whose redevelopment is complicated by possible contamination. Superfund refers to the U.S. Environmental Agency's program to clean hazardous-waste sites nationwide. A new approach Using technology originally developed by a division of the multinational oil company Royal Dutch Shell, TerraTherm removes pollutants by heating them to temperatures as high as 630 degrees Fahrenheit so that they vaporize. "Many approaches to treating contaminated properties have involved digging them up and taking them off to another place like a landfill, which really doesn't get rid of the problem, it just moves it to another location," said Baker, a self-described "life-long environmentalist." "In fact, many landfills have turned into Superfund sites over the years. By contrast, what we're able to do is destroy the contamination in place so it's gone." The technology works by applying a high-temperature surface to the soil. The heat then radiates through an entire site because materials such as clay or silt heat up uniformly, Baker explained, removing contaminates such as oils and PCBs. Removing such contaminants cleans the surrounding water table and also makes a site much more attractive to developers for reuse projects, according to Baker. One of TerraTherm's original financial supporters is the Massachusetts Technology Development Corp., a quasi-public agency created by the Legislature, which has invested $750,000 in TerraTherm. The MTDC received its initial funding from the state and federal government budget in the late 1970s, but is now self-sustaining. Not exciting, but important Robert J. Crowley, president of the MTDC, said he is encouraged by the company's recent projects. "TerraTherm personifies the type of company we were created to address. It's a company that a lot of the so-called traditional venture capital firms probably would pass over. It's not an exciting technology, but it's an important technology," he said. "We got interested in it because of the technology and the good it can do." Crowley sits on TerraTherm's board of directors, along with a representative from Bison Capital LLC, the Florida venture-capital firm that was the second source of TerraTherm's start-up money. TerraTherm's employees have significantly improved their financial savvy to complement their technological expertise, refusing to accept undervalued contracts, Crowley said. "They've gone to 'fitness school' to develop muscles to deal with other companies," he said. "We're very pleased with the progress the company has made in the past two years." One TerraTherm project about which Baker speaks fondly happened in Richmond, Calif., which he described as a "gritty industrial city" much like Fitchburg. Working with Richmond's redevelopment agency, TerraTherm cleaned a former shipping and bulk-storage terminal on the San Francisco Bay. The project lasted about nine months and cost about $2 million, but added $5 million to the 14-acre-property's value, Baker said. It is now being redeveloped privately for high-end residential units, and will include a park, trail and fishing pier, according to Gary Hembree, chief of redevelopment projects for Richmond's Community Redevelopment Agency. "Before, we could do nothing," he said. "But with the remediation, we're going to be able to proceed with redevelopment and waterfront revitalization." TerraTherm's clients are located nationwide. Its four ongoing projects are in Taunton, Syracuse, N.Y., Greenville, S.C., and Huntsville, Ala., which is for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
NEWS RELEASE Fitchburg, MA. TerraTherm, Inc., a leading in-situ thermal remediation technology firm, is pleased to announce that Dr. Gorm Heron has joined the company as Vice President - Senior Scientist/Engineer, based in Bakersfield, California. Gorm is well known as an expert practitioner of in-situ thermal remediation (ISTR) focusing on the design, operation and evaluation of Steam-Enhanced Extraction (SEE) and Dynamic Underground Stripping (DUS) technologies at DNAPL sites. He also has experience across the broad range of non-thermal in situ remediation technologies. Gorm comes to TerraTherm after over 6 years working as Principal Environmental Engineer with SteamTech Environmental Services, Inc. based in Bakersfield, CA. During this period, he served as their technical leader on numerous ground-breaking pilot- and full-scale SEE and DUS remediation projects, including the Visalia Pole Yard, Visalia, CA; Loring Air Force Base, Limestone, ME; Edwards Air Force Base, Edwards, CA; and the Young-Rainey STAR Center, Largo, GL. He also has provided technical support to several interagency advisory panels sponsored by branches of the US government. He has published articles on groundwater science, changes in groundwater and contaminant behavior associated with subsurface heating, and in situ thermal remediation. Gorm earned his M.S and Ph.D. degrees at the Technical University of Denmark, was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at USEPA's Robert S. Kerr Environmental Research Laboratory in Ada, OK, and was an Engineering Research Assistant at the UC-Berkeley Environmental Research Center, Berkeley, CA. With TerraTherm, Gorm will contribute to the development and ongoing implementation of our In Situ Thermal Desorption (ISTD) technology, as well as the expansion of TerraTherm's services to include complementary in situ thermal remediation technologies such as combined ISTD/SEE for treatment of mixed-stratigraphy sites. Dr. Heron is one of the most highly respected ISTR researchers and practitioners. We are very excited to have him on our team! For more information, please contact Ralph S. Baker, Ph.D., CEO and Technology Manager at (978) 343-0300. NEWS RELEASE Boston, January 10, 2003 – TerraTherm, Inc. of Fitchburg, MA recently entered into a License Agreement with Shell International Exploration and Production Inc. of Houston, TX. Under this agreement Shell has granted TerraTherm exclusive international rights to the In-Situ Thermal Desorption (ISTD) technology, which is a technology that cleans soils without the need to excavate. These rights were granted for the cleanup of soil contaminants that do not occur naturally. With this new agreement, TerraTherm announces its entrance into the international environmental marketplace. ISTD is a revolutionary soil remediation technology that combines conductive heating and vapor extraction of contaminated soil. ISTD has the unique capability of achieving stringent cleanup goals for a full range of organic contaminants, such as industrial waste, petroleum spills, electrical transformer fluid and dry cleaning/solvents. TerraTherm installs its electric heating elements within the contaminated zone and operates them at temperatures as high as 1400ºF while imposing a vacuum on the heated soil. Hot gases are collected by the vacuum system and then treated by state-of-the-art air treatment equipment. ISTD has treated highly contaminated soils (all soil types can be treated equally well) to below laboratory detection limits without requiring any excavation. Past clients have included both the U.S. government and major industrial firms. Among TerraTherm’s current major U.S. projects is the remediation of a two-acre former wood treatment facility owned by Southern California Edison Company, Alhambra, CA. This site is contaminated with a mix of PAHs and dioxins, and Edison has selected ISTD as the most cost-effective method available to return its site to unrestricted use. Invented and initially commercialized by Shell in the late 1990s, ISTD has been used successfully at a variety of hazardous waste sites within the U.S., including sites contaminated with PCBs, chlorinated solvents and fuel oil/gasoline. Shell donated the U.S. rights to the ISTD technology to the University of Texas at Austin, which in 2000 granted TerraTherm the exclusive license to commercialize ISTD within the U.S. TerraTherm has since grown in both staff and resources and now has offices in Fitchburg, MA and Houston, TX, with current projects throughout the U.S. TerraTherm has already initiated international marketing of ISTD through an agreement with SheGoTec Japan, Inc., and has been fielding numerous inquiries from around the world. According to Ralph S. Baker, Ph.D., TerraTherm’s CEO, “the rate of growth of the soil and groundwater remediation sector outside the U.S. is outpacing domestic growth. Key factors are reduction of environmental liabilities, conversion of former industrial sites to productive use, and governmental requirements. We see great interest in our technology both here and abroad.”
Four large projects already lined up By Jim Bodor FITCHBURG-- TerraTherm Inc. is one hot company.
TerraTherm, which heats contaminated soil to more than 800 degrees Celsius to remove pollutants, has received a $2.25 million venture capital investment, the company announced yesterday.
The last site is the largest Superfund site overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense, Mr. Baker said. It measures 55 feet by 105 feet, and it is 12 feet deep. TerraTherm will clean 2,500 cubic yards of contaminated soil. The work will take until March 2002 to complete.
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