A new SURF case study about the Pasco Landfill National Priorities List (NPL) site in Washington state will be the subject of SURF’s April 30th webinar. The case study (click here) describes a removal action involving the excavation of more than 35,000 buried drums and 23,800 tons of waste. Having a hard time picturing 35,000 drums? Placed next to each other, the drums equal the length of Manhattan Island (NY) – over 13 miles.

During the project’s design phase, the project team, including the contractor, worked closely with the regulators to incorporate remediation strategies to safely remove the buried drums and protect the nearby community. Green and sustainable remediation tenants and the development of a carbon footprint tracking process were also included in the design. Remediation activities were performed between October 2020 and August 2022. Transportation and disposal volumes were reduced by recycling 229 tons of concrete, 10 tons of steel, and 1,000 tons of asphalt and repurposing 329 tons of concrete ballast.

“This was truly a monumental effort, and the safe and thorough execution of the drum removal could only have occurred through extensive collaboration between local governments, businesses, contractors, and the entities responsible for cleanup,” said Jeremy Schmidt, Washington State Department of Ecology’s site manager.