Piedroba invited to share experiences at the Sixth International Conference on Remediation of Contaminated Sediments in New Orleans

Dr. Luis Prieto-Portar, PhD, PE, Piedroba’s CEO, will attend the Sixth International Conference on Remediation of Contaminated sediments. Dr. Prieto-Portar will be discussing emerging technologies and their application to clean surface waters during the course of maintenance dredging of Florida waterways. During the conference, Dr. Prieto-Portar and co-author Luis Prieto y Munoz, will present and discuss their technical paper: ‘Sand Recovery for Beach Renourishment from Waterway Cleansing: The Holmes Beach Canals’.

The maintenance of over 11,000 miles of rivers and waterways in Florida normally involves the dual tasks of dredging and disposal of the removed sediments. These sensitive environments merit adding a third task: cleansing the surface water and removal of contaminant solids. These solids include the recovery of clean sands, removal of heavy metals, rubbish and other contaminants.

New techniques are converting dredging into a bioremediation strategy. A case study of some of these new techniques is presented through the dredging of eight canals of the city of Holmes Beach in Manatee County during the summer of 2009. Although not required by the city, the contractor included the third task of cleansing the surface water and extracting solids from the dredged 6,890 yd3 via a total cleansing system. The system consists of a portable three-stage cleaning process, that cyclones and sieves the influent. Each stage separates increasing finer solids down to particles 37 microns in size. Ninety-five percent of the solids were clean quartz sand, useful for local fills. The effluent was practically clean, with turbidities commonly 25 NTU below baseline. In the few sections that yielded higher turbidities, the effluent was directed to containers where the solids were recovered through flocculants. The paper discusses the use of a compact swinging-ladder dredge, GPS-based software to optimize the dredged profile, solids recovery systems and the flocculation of fines.

To view a digital copy of the paper ‘Sand Recovery for Beach Renourishment from Waterway Cleansing: The Holmes Beach Canals’, please click on the link below:Sand Recovery for Beach Renourishment from Waterway Cleansing: The Holmes Beach Canals
 
About the Sixth Batelle Conference on Remediation of Contaminated Sediments: The Sixth Sediments Conference, held in New Orleans in February 2011, was the largest to date, attended by approximately 1,100 scientists, engineers, regulators, remediation site owners, and other environmental professionals, representing universities, government agencies, consultants, and R&D and service firms from around the world. The technical program was made up of one panel discussion and 48 specialized sessions, encompassing 430 platform and poster presentations. The program was organized into the following five thematic tracks:
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Sediment Processes and Modeling
Characterization, Assessment, and Monitoring
Sediment Remediation and Remediation Processes
Remedy Performance and Challenges
Management and Policy

This conference series focuses on hazardous contaminants that find their way to the sediments of rivers, lakes, bays, and harbors, where they present significant risk to economic development and the health of aquatic environments worldwide. To maintain the economic and biological viability of these environments, it is necessary to manage complex series of actions that affect a wide range of environmental, economic, and social issues. Each conference addresses the challenges of combining basic research, new characterization and assessment methodologies, innovative engineering, and good management practices to address the concerns of all stakeholders.