DTD Wraps Up Extensive Horizontal Sparge Well Project in Alaska
As the summer winds down in Alaska, DTD put the finishing touches on our horizontal remediation well installation project at a remote site on the Yukon River. Mobilizing to the site in May and with a drilling start in early June, DTD personnel worked through the summer, taking few breaks, to accomplish DTD’s largest single remediation project ever. A few statistics:
KO Housing and Drill Bit Entering the Ground
- Number of Horizontal Wells: 8
- Total drilling: 7,821 feet
- Total horizontal well screen: 4,930 feet
- Average well length: 978 feet
- Approximate drilling waste: 333 cubic yards
- Approximate drilling mud used: 1,940 bags
- Horizontal well depth: variable, ranging from 45 up to 85 feet below ground
The horizontal wells will be used to create a laterally extensive air sparging network to treat contaminated groundwater. Assuming a 30′ radius of influence, the network has the ability to treat almost seven acres of contamination. Each of the wells was installed with DTD’s patented KO Drilling System, which was necessary to insure accurate placement of the approximately 1,000′ long blind wells into loose sands and gravel. The picture to the right shows the sacrificial drill bit, which is knocked off of the navigation housing during the installation of the well materials.
The DTD crew has loaded the last of the equipment onto barges, which are now headed back up river to Nenana. From there, the equipment reverses its mobilization route, traveling overland to Anchorage, down the Pacific to Seattle, before the short haul to our Bremerton,WA shop. Various pieces of equipment will be staged in Bremerton for return to their “home” shops, or to the next project.