SORBWEB™ PLUS

 

When one thinks of NASA, one thinks of High Tech. NASA, we are pleased to say, has deemed SorbWeb™Plus to be their secondary oil containment system for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Through EG&G, a URS subsidiary, we have in December of 2010 installed the first SorbWeb™Plus system for secondary oil containment of one of their transformers.

We are specified as being the secondary oil containment system for NASA at Cape Kennedy and will in 2011 be installing many more systems.

SorbWeb™Plus for all your hydro-carbon containment needs, drains water and retains oil; maintenance free; installed easily and quickly; provides fire suppression; life expectancy exceeds equipment; suitable for new or existing installations.

Aurora MS 6 14975 Bayview Ave. Aurora, Ontario

In October  2010 Albarrie Geocomposites Ltd. had the privilege to install our secondary oil containment system for Power Stream. This was our 3^rd project for Power Stream this year and 8^th overall. This site has 2 transformers, one that already had containment but wasn’t working and one that required containment which we used our standard excavated earthen perimeter solution.  The one that already had containment was not expelling rain water and is the one that I will be talking about.

We can see that this is a sensitive area where there is a water storm pond adjacent to the substation.

It is a perfect site for Albarrie’s SorbWebTM Plus System , which will not allow any oil to escape or 0 parts per million in the event of a failure.

 

This is a 10Mva transformer that was installed in 1973 with 3180 imperial gals or 14,457 Liters of transformer oil.

 

Here we see how the system only held water and didn’t have the available volume for the transformer oil in the event of a catastrophic failure.

The depth of this containment was approximately 40” or 1.0m which was also close to the water table. The design was to excavate only a portion of the existing stone until we achieved the proper volume required. An impermeable liner would be installed and it would drain the water out of the containment with the use of wick drains. The Oilmat and other SorbWeb layers would follow on top.

 

 

Secondary oil containment installed at Rock Pump Station, Rock, Kansas

Albarrie Geocomposites Ltd. had the privilege to install our SorbWebTM Plus secondary oil containment system for TransCanada Pipelines. This is the first of many pump stations in the 12 billion dollar Keystone Project Pipeline being installed from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. The site was located in a farmer’s field and would be isolated from urban contact so SorbWebTM Plus was therefore the best solution, as it is a maintenance free secondary oil containment system. The transformer at this site contained a considerable amount of oil at 9,570gals or 36,226 liters. The site also required drainage due to the soils being impermeable.

We start with the excavation and also build side slopes around the transformer at a 1:1 slope. This is done when the transformer pads are not as deep as the containment and we don’t want undercutting or erosion under the pad to occur.

We strap all the transformer pads with the impermeable liner by drilling through the plastic straps and hammering in a concrete anchor.

 

A 2”(50mm) base sand layer is placed on the floor of the containment and the drainage(wick drains) are laid out. The sand will aide in the drainage process.

 

The wick drains are typically arranged in central areas with equal distances from the side slopes.

 

Several types of connections are used with the wick drains, here we see a versatile connector that can be used as a ‘Y’ or a 90. The unused openings are taped over.

The lines are connected together and brought to an area where it exits the containment site. A minimum slope of 0.5% must be maintained for the system to properly drain.

OIL BOOM INSTALLATION

Albarrie Geocomposites is now introducing a new product called an Oil Boom. This product has been developed for customers that would like a more inexpensive secondary oil containment system. It has been designed to contain any released oil from escaping their site.

This is a unique product with an easy installation process.

Below is a typical cross section of the Oil Boom consisting of a simple trench and backfilled clear stone.

First the existing site gravel is shoveled to the side.

A 4” deep trench is dug into the existing earth.

The Oil boom is then placed in this trench.

The existing earth that was removed is placed back in the 4” trench on either side of the Oil Boom and compacted.

The Oil Boom is then backfilled on both sides with the existing stone that was removed.

Additional clear stone may be required to achieve the desirable slope. A 1:1 slope is the minimum.

In the cases where the soil is unstable 1 x 2 stakes are used. The Oil Boom is again placed in the excavated trench and stakes are installed at a separation distance that is required. The stakes must be flush with the top of the Oil Boom.

The Oil Boom is then screwed to the stakes.

The Oil Boom is then backfilled as previously done with the existing earth and then the clear stone.

Again additional clear stone may be required to achieve the desirable slope. A 1:1 slope is the minimum.

If you have any questions concerning the installation of this product please contact the undersigned.

Prepared by: Mike Dowds
Albarrie Geocomposites

An Example of the Wrong Geosynthetics Deployed

Geosynthetics have been invented to solve problems in civil engineering and to provide solutions. The construction industry is highly competitive therefore using geosynthetics can often save costs on a project. A simple example is the use of geotextiles in road construction where the geotextile is used as a separator between the soils and the aggregate. This saves money on aggregate as the stone will sink and be lost in the soils, therefore less aggregate is used.

However, there are cases where businesses are not aware of how geosynthetics should be used and will offer the wrong solution. By offering the wrong solution more damage is caused that will affect the performance of the geosynthetic.

A company is offering a cheap solution for oil containment in the Electrical Industry. As the electrical industry sees secondary oil containment as an expense which they do not have any return they are often buying into this cheap solution.

They are offering a Geosynthetic Clay Liner [GCL] which would be deployed around the transformer pad. Typically the GCL is deployed on the surface of the soils and 4 to 6 inches of stone is placed on top of the GCL. The problem with this is one that 4 to 6 inches of stone will not give the GCL enough confining stress to become a hydraulic barrier. Typically GCL’s are buried under at least 3 feet of soil. Three feet of soil typically equates to a confining stress of 2 psi. This is the confining stress that all GCLs are tested at to assure their performance as a barrier.

Also at 4” to 6” of cover stone above the GCL the GCL will not remain hydrated. The GCL will go through periods of hydration and dehydration. It is a well known fact that should the GCL go through periods of hydration and dehydration that the sodium bentonite that is within the GCL will undertake an ionic exchange and become calcium bentonite. Calcium bentonite does not have the high swelling characteristics that sodium bentonite has. So as the clay desiccates through periods of hydration and dehydration, these will not heal and the GCL is no longer a barrier.

We were asked to quote on a Utility’s new substation in Wisconsin. On examination of the subsoil we noted that the soils were of fat clays, which would not accept infiltration of water. It was our solution that underneath our system we would put in drainage to move the water from the containment system that we had proposed.

The following is a solution that the client had chosen due to cost. The system was extremely cheap in comparison to the system which we offered.

On the surface of the soil, which was deemed already to be impermeable a GCL was laid. The GCL was then to be covered with 6” of stone. See picture number one.

From this design we can immediately see the first practice of deployment that is incorrect. GCLs when they have a confining stress of 2psi [3 feet of cover soil] or less should be overlapped and loose bentonite augmented in-between the seams. The purpose of this is to assure that there would be no leakage from the seams. There has been no overlapping of the seams in the deployment of the GCLs.

Around the perimeter of this containment area you will note that there is a wooden border. This wooden border is meant to hold in place, until the area is filled with stone a mat which contains co-polymer. In construction of containment systems in is normally not a practice to have a vertical wall of a geotextile. This vertical wall will not remain vertical as frost heaves rain and snow melt will move the vertical fabric. I always use the example of a farmer’s field after winter where rocks which were not apparent in the fall, are now on the surface. This is due to the ground heaving after frost. As this fabric is not attached to anything this fabric will not remain in a vertical position.

It is common practice when forming a wall with geosynthetics that the wall is sloped, typically at a minimum of 1:1 and that the geosynthetic is trenched into the soils. This allows the geosynthetic to float with movement of soils.

As we stated early, we had determined that the soils were impermeable and that we needed to install a drainage system to move the water off site.

The following picture was taken after a rainstorm.

The Cheap system did not take into account that the soils were impermeable.

Also, the GCL which is now deployed has become prematurely hydrated. Due to this factor the GCL should now be replaced, which it was not. Typically, there is not a problem with a GCL that has no confining stress becomes prematurely hydrated. The issue is now that the GCL must fully dry out before any further action is taken. Also when wet there cannot be any traffic on the GCL, as walking on a GCL will extrude the hydrated bentonite.

If the contractor was experienced in the geosynthetic that he was deploying, he would know that once all the water was removed off site that the GCL needed to be replaced. However, the GCL was walked upon and remained on site.

Sadly this cheap system using the wrong geosynthetics in the wrong application and not taking note of the onsite soil conditions is not offering any containment solution to the customer-

Sometimes, doing nothing is better than spending money on a poorly designed system.

SORBWEB PLUS – GULF OIL SPILL

About Us

Kinectrics Inc. is a science/engineering company located in Toronto, Ontario that provides solutions to technical challenges in environmental technologies, generation (nuclear, hydro and fossil), distribution and industrial energy services. Kinectrics developed the SorbWeb™ Plus SOC (secondary oil containment system) technology and has a partnership with Albarrie to distribute the technology and manufacture the oil mat. Albarrie Canada located in Barrie, Ontario is a textile company that specializes in the manufacture of geosynthetics, technical fabrics, environmental services and process control (aluminum extrusion).

SorbWeb™ Plus SOC (secondary oil containment system) Features

Kinectrics’ SorbWeb™ Plus system was developed for secondary oil spill containment (SOC) around electrical transformers for electric utilities. SorbWeb™ Plus SOC seals only on coming in contact with oil in the containment area. Until the system seals (after contacting oil), it allows water from rain/seawater to pass through its “smart” barrier layers without accumulating. When oil contacts the oil mat, it becomes impermeable to both water and oil to contain the spill.

In the system presented, the oil mat is modified from its typical application. The oil mat will be used to trap and contain oil for clean up, but will allow seawater and rain water to pass. The copolymer in the oil mat will react with the oil to form a rubbery oil-impermeable layer. This rubbery mat prevents oil from contaminating protected beach areas. Suspending the oil mat off the oil booms forces the oil within the water column to the surface for collection. The copolymer is not released into the environment.

SorbWeb™ Plus has been in use since 1996 at several sites in Canada. Successful containment of a 4,000-litre spill was achieved following an accident at a site located along the Don River in Toronto (SorbWeb™ Plus installation had been in continuous service for 2 years prior to the incident). Bruce Power installed a SorbWeb™ Plus SOC in 2005/2006 to protect against a potential spill of 3,200,000 L of oil (catastrophic failure of transformers/capacitors).

There are well over 300 installations of SorbWeb™ Plus throughout North America protecting millions of gallons of oil from reaching the environment. Sorbweb™ Plus has been installed outside of North America in countries such as Sweden, as it has been proven to be a viable system for the containment of hydro-carbons.

BP Oil Spill Proposal:

Option 1

This option proposes laying SorbWeb™ Plus in a trench and along the beach leading up to the trench. The wave action will push oily water into the trench where it will be trapped by the oil mat. Vacuum trucks on the beach can vacuum up the oily water and remove to a disposal facility.

Option 2

This option proposes suspending SorbWeb™ Plus from existing oil booms. The oil boom is only capable of trapping oil that has risen to the surface. However, this oil is leaking from the bottom up and therefore is potentially escaping underneath the oil boom. Suspending the oil mat off the oil boom forces the oil within the water column to the surface for collection. Hanging SorbWeb™ Plus helps to intercept the oil flow path at a much deeper depth and would prevent a more significant amount of oil from reaching land.

Option 3

This option proposes using oil booms to direct the flow of oil onto SorbWeb™ Plus installed on an area of the beach. Vacuum trucks on the beach can vacuum up the oily water and remove to a disposal facility (similar to Option 1).

Option 4

Using the mat create a fence along the shoreline, allowing water to pass, however the mat would be a barrier to any hydrocarbon. This would protect any oil from entering the shore or marsh areas. The mat would be staked at intervals along the width. The mat would be placed such that it would function with low and high tides.

Above Ground Storage Tanks

There are not too many private independent gas stations left in North America, if in fact there are any at all.

Typically with age the older storage tanks have developed leaks.  The Independent cannot afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace the gasoline tanks and the hundreds of thousands of dollars to remediate the soils.  When gasoline or diesel fuel has seeped into the soil all the soil that has been contaminated with these hydro carbons must be taken out and re mediated. It is not unheard of for these remediation costs to escalate to millions of dollars.

So fuel is today retailed to us by the large conglomerate, which can afford the costs associated with these remediation’s  and of course, pass this cost onto us the consumer.

Newer tanks that are buried are double walled or fibreglass lined, lasting much longer than the old single wall tank. However, over time these tanks will also fail.  There is also the consumer who spills fuel when refuelling – allowing that fuel to seep into the ground. Even though it may be spilled on concrete, concrete is porous and I have yet to see a gas station where the concrete surface has been sealed.  The fuel will migrate off of the concrete and enter the soil.

The same applies to above ground storage tanks [ASTs]. There are many above ground fuel tanks used for commercial purposes, whether it is construction, farming or the military. These refuelling tanks are typically built on a concrete slab.  However around that slab is just gravel on top of soil.

Spills occur when refuelling, no matter how careful one might be. The fuel typically will travel from the concrete to the soils. These tanks can also fail or a hose break, or another external part fail, resulting in more than just a little spill. The entire contents of the tank can be lost and the fuel enters the soil.

Now the cost not only becomes the replacement of the hose, external part or tank, but the costly job of removal all the soil that has been contaminated by the fuel and having all that soil remediated. The costs maybe not be in the millions as they are with gas stations, but one can easily be seeing a bill in the one hundred thousand dollar range, depending on the volume of the fuel that has made its way into the soils.

We offer a solution, a simple solution that can be installed by any contractor. Our solution does not require any maintenance once installed, there are not any pumps to remove rain water or snow melt. It allows water to pass through the system into the subsoil, however when hydro carbons come in contact with the system, it will seal and contain all the hydro carbons.

The cost to install the system, depending on the volume of the AST can be as low as few thousand dollars.

The solution is a lot less expensive as compared to a few hundred thousand dollars to remediate.

Above Ground Storage Tanks

Center Point Substation – Lansdale, Pennsylvania

Albarrie Geocomposites Ltd. had the privilege to install our SorbWebTM Plus secondary oil containment system for PECO – (Philadelphia Electric Company).This site was a new substation that included three 500 – 230 Kv transformers plus one spare. They each contained 16,700 gals of oil and they were all individually surrounded by concrete walls that would eventually tower 34’ in the air.

Center Point Substation - Lansdale, Pennsylvania

Center Point Substation - Lansdale, Pennsylvania

This is the spare transformer that didn’t have any containment walls and therefore was not ready for our installation yet.

Here the grounding grid is being installed before the SorbWeb system is installed.

The base 2” layer of sand is placed over the grounding grid. As you can see the front wall was not installed for ease of entering all 3 containments. The plan was to install the SorbWeb system up as close to the proposed wall then build the wall and return to tie everything together.

We started with the installation of the impermeable liner along the perimeter walls.

Next came strapping the impermeable liner to the transformer pad.

All grounding wires were secured to the pads with brackets which will prevent any movement that would disturb or damage the impermeable liner.

The strapping is anchored to the pad as close to the grounding wire as possible.

The first piece of Oilmat is lifted into place and rolled out.

SaskPower – Powerhouse Substation

In June 2009 Albarrie Canada Ltd. had the privilege to install our  SorbWeb(TM) Plus secondary oil containment system for SaskPower. It was a sensitive area on the banks of the Wascana Lake within the City of Regina. It consisted of two separate containments outside their powerhouse.

The site was a challenge in that the soil was a dense impermeable clay with nowhere to drain the water.

It was therefore engineered to excavate a designed size pit and line it with non woven geotextile and fill it with washed crush stone and drain the water to it using 6” wick drains.

Here we place wick drains covering as much area as possible.

The wick drains must have a minimum slope of 0.5% for proper drainage and are covered with washed crush stone.

Gerber Lee Substation Monroeville, Ohio – April 12th, 2010

Albarrie Geocomposites Ltd. once again had the privilege to install our SorbWebTM Plus secondary oil containment system for Vaughn Industries. This was the second opportunity for us to install an oil containment system for Vaughn, the previous one being the LMREC Camden Substation in Camden, Ohio last year. This site(Gerber Lee) was an older substation that was being upgraded with an new transformer containing 2,070 gals of mineral oil and was located inside the town limits of Monroeville making it a sensitive area for the environment. This site was also special as it required drainage due to the soils being impermeable.

Upon arrival the excavation had not begun which gave myself the opportunity to help construct a containment complete from start to finish.

Since the containment depth was 24” the excavation went quickly and was completed in a matter of hours.

The drainage lines were laid out in central locations of the containment and was attached with various types of connectors. Here we see a Y.

The drainage is placed in the base 2” layer of sand. Here we see a cross with the unused openings taped over.

The lines are connected together and brought to an area where it exits the containment site. A minimum slope of 0.5% must be maintained for the system to properly drain.

In this case the lines joined together and entered an existing storm line. The drainage system is then buried with sand.