The DTD team has returned from the Battelle conference, energized with all of the exciting developments in remediation technologies. After talking with literally dozens of designers and purveyors of new and innovative technologies, from injected amendments and oxidizers, to thermal treatment technologies, the conclusion is clear: horizontal remediation wells can be very effective in applying these new processes, in many cases much better than vertical wells.
One interesting study was presented by Craig Devine from Arcadis, who shared the experimental work that they have done using a horizontal well packed with a reactive substrate, to form a passive remediation system – with proper orientation along the groundwater gradient, the system is “self-pumping”. Groundwater enters the well screen at the upgradient end, flows through the treatment media, and emerges – clean – at the distal end. A flow-focusing phenomenon actually causes the well – which contains no pump – to capture a much wider zone of water than the well diameter itself – in fact, tens of feet wider.