Accuworx Receives Brownie Award!!!

 

Our Remediation Team Won a CUI Brownie Award

 

The 15^th Annual Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) Brownie Awards were handed out at the Daniels Spectrum in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood. The Brownie Awards program recognizes leadership, innovation and environmental sustainability in brownfields redevelopment across Canada. The CUI bring together urban practitioners from the private, public and not-for-profit sectors to participate in various events with top thinkers, leading experts and decision-makers from Canada and abroad.  The 2014 Brownie Award for Sustainable Remediation Technologies and Technological Innovation was awarded to the Greenwich Mohawk Brownfield demonstration project for steam enhanced extraction.

 

Our dedication to innovation lead us to believe that stream enhanced extraction technology would prove to be a success for the application to brownfields and other heavy oil contaminated sites in Ontario. Accuworx Inc. became the only environmental service provider to hold an Environmental Compliance Approval from the Ministry of the Environment to utilize the technology.  In conjunction with our partners, Groundwater Technology, steam was used to heat the soils (> 100°C) at the Greenwich Mohawk Brownfield and an excess of 1,100 litres of pure oil were extracted from the soils in just 3 weeks which in turn ended up being recycled. Triple Bottom Line analysis demonstrated that this in-situ approach produces a smaller carbon footprint than other techniques. The environmental impact of the remediation is evaluated based on CO₂ emissions. In comparison, excavation by excavator, hauling away by truck and final soil treatment would generate 40% more CO₂ emission than heat enhanced remediation. The success of the Brantford project paves the way for this advanced remediation technology to be applied to the Canadian soil remediation market.

 

We would like to congratulate all those involved in the project including our partners Groundwater Technology as well as The City of Brantford. The leadership of former Brantford City Councillor Marguerite Ceschi-Smith is particularly acknowledged, her vision and forward-thinking was key to Brantford’s decision to support the demonstration project and bring Groundwater Technology to help advance further research and knowledge in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada. The project was carried out with assistance from The Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Green Municipal Fund and The Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs under the 2g@there program through the Netherlands Soil Platform. Assistance was also provided by the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Toronto.

 

 

25th Anniversary Celebration!!

Last Friday evening, September 19, 2014, Accuworx staff, vendors and clients came together to celebrate a milestone.  A milestone of being in business 25 years and a time to recognize, celebrate and reflect.  Taking an evening to do this and look back over 25 years was remarkable.  As some of you have probably heard, this business was started by the owner 25 years ago out of the back of a Chevy van with a mobile pressure washer - how things have changed from determination and success!!  We viewed some photographs that brought back many memories.  Memories of early on when the business was born, to when it purchased its first vacuum truck, and to today with the largest fleet of its kind on Ontario.  It was a journey of many choices, ones that have strategically placed Accuworx as a leader in the industry and ones that will continue to make us a successful and highly sought after leader.   Accuworx Owner and President Jason Rosset gave a short speech thanking everyone for attending.  Adding a personal note, he thanked everyone for being part of his team and that he was honored to work with such diverse crowd of people.  As we reflected, we also looked forward.  We look forward to continually growing Accuworx to the absolute highest level.  We continue to invest in new equipment, training , and staff.  We will be moving into a state of the art facility by mid-November where our fleet can be stored and serviced indoors.  We look forward to the next 25 years of being in business!!

 

Brantford Greenwich Mohawk Brownfield

Accuworx has been contracted to conduct a really exciting environmental remediation project.  

The Brantford Greenwich Mohawk brownfield test pilot has been receiving international attention for the unique Dutch based remediation solution being performed at the site by Accuworx.

 

Occupying the 24 hectare piece of land from the early 1900’s to into the mid 1980’s was the Verity Plow Company (later Massey-Harris), Adams Wagon Company (later Trailmobile), Sternson Chemical and the Cockshutt Plow Company (later WhiteFarm Equipment).  By the mid-1980’s between the Cockshutt Plow Company and Massey Harris these two industries employed over 7,000 people but by 1988 both the Cockshutt Plow Company and Massey Harris facilities had closed their doors

For 25 years the City of Brantford has sought for solutions to bring this idle property back on line for reuse. Numerous subsurface investigations over the past 15 years have been completed at theGreenwich Mohawk site for the purpose of gaining an understanding of the extent of the environmental impacts at the site and to calculate a feasible cost to remediate the impacted soil and groundwater.

 

In late 2012 the City of Brantford began its final chapter in redeveloping the underutilized, vacant lands of the Greenwich Mohawk site by proceeding with the demolition of the former Massey Harris buildings and completing a steam enhanced extraction pilot test to determine the feasibility and cost effectiveness of this innovative sustainable remedial technology as an effective means of cleaning up the environmental impact legacy left behind all those decades ago.

 

In 2012, Accuworx and Groundwater Technology BV (GTBV) of Rotterdam, The Netherlands were awarded grant monies from the Dutch Government, Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the City of Brantford to complete a Pilot Test at the former Massey Harris site located at 347 Greenwich Street in Brantford, Ontario.  The pilot test under a mobile Environmental Compliance Approval from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment will be conducted on an area measuring approximately 300 m² and an approximate volume of 1,200 m³ of soil and groundwater impacted with Petroleum Hydrocarbons (PHCs) F2 to F3 PHC Fractionation consisting of diesel fuel and cutting oil.

 

Steam Enhanced Extraction (SEE) is an in-situ thermal remediation process that involves the delivery and application of steam to the subsurface in order to heat the subsurface soils and groundwater to an elevated predetermined temperature.  For the pilot test the subsurface temperature will be elevated from a normal background temperature of 10 to 12°C to between 75 and 100°C. By elevating the temperature within the subsurface the physical and chemical characteristic of both the soils, groundwater and contaminants are changed to a more favourable state where they can be extracted from the ground.  The heat produced from the steam promotes the following physical and chemical changes.  Contaminants of concern when heated will have a decreased density, an increase in their vapour pressure, a decrease in adsorption to the organic matter contained within the soil as well as an increase in the molecular diffusion in the aqueous and gaseous phases.