Treatability studies for waters in oil pond No. 1, oil pond No. 2, and the oil seep

Laboratory and pilot plant studies have investigated treatment methods for water contained in 2 small ponds located at the Bear Creek burial grounds. The sediments in the bottom of the pond are contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and plans to close out these ponds and remove the sediments have been prepared. These laboratory and pilot plant studies show that the water in the ponds contained no significant amounts of metals and only trace quantities of organics. The amount of PCB in the water was near the detection level. The biological quality of the water before treatment was excellent. Unit operations examined in these studies included filtration, air stripping and carbon filtration. Air stripping removed all of the trace amounts of volatile organics and carbon filtration removed all of the detectable quantities of other organics except for the low amounts of total organic carbon. Based on these tests it has been recommended that the water in the ponds be filtered and released without additional treatment through a permitted discharge point. Water from any oil seep is recommended to be collected and treated using filtration, air stripping and carbon filtration. Any water released from this process should meet the permitted discharge qualitymore » plus meet a biological test specified by the permitting agency. 2 figs., 16 tabs.« less