Why Ad-Blue is Not Green<\/p>\n
By Paul Stapleton, Director Geo2<\/p>\n
Ad Blue has been regarded in the past as a \u2018green\u2019 product.
\nInvestigations by Geo2 as part of a forecourt redevelopment suggested
\notherwise.
\nA major UK fuel producer and retailer commissioned Geo2, a land
\nremediation specialist, to manage environmental matters during the
\nredevelopment and expansion of one of their flagship sites, including
\na full knockdown and rebuild, replacement of all tanks and
\nunderground infrastructure, and a doubling of the site\u2019s footprint
\nthrough the addition of a new HGV forecourt area.
\nDuring underground tank removal, strong ammonia odours were
\ncoming from the ground. The odours were so strong that the
\ncontractor could not safely work, especially as the source of the
\nrelease, and the nature of the contaminant, was unclear.
\nThe situation was very serious for the client:
\n\u2022 The site had an unknown contaminant, with a business adjoining
\nthe site which may be impacted by vapour, and watercourses on
\ntwo sides of the property which included protected species
\n\u2022 The contractor on site could not proceed with the development until
\nthe source and type of contaminant were established so that
\nPPE and breathing apparatus used by Geo2 engineers
\nduring delineation trial pitting works.
\nWith personal \u2018ammonia in air\u2019 monitors
\n32 APEA tel: 0345 603 5507<\/p>\n
www.apea.org.uk<\/p>\n
Articles appropriate H&S measures could be put in place
\n\u2022 The contamination needed to be managed in line
\nwith environmental responsibilities, UK law and
\nredevelopment planning conditions
\n\u2022 The delays with redevelopment were causing
\nsignificant knock-on impacts for the programme,
\nincreasing contractor costs and delaying the
\nopening of the store, with commercial
\nconsequences
\nInvestigations by Geo2 concluded that the source
\nwas likely to be Ad-Blue, a diesel supplement used in
\nHGVs and other diesel vehicles to reduce emissions.
\nThe product is based on industrial urea, breaking
\ndown into ammonia. Investigation by the client
\ndiscovered that there had been an incident with an
\nAd-Blue above-ground tank, underground line and
\npump fitted at the HGV filling area, prior to the
\nredevelopment. It appeared likely that the losses
\nassociated with this leak had been vastly under-
\nestimated by the third-party operator of the system
\nat the time.
\nTo confirm the source, Geo2 undertook soil and
\nwater sampling using full respiratory equipment.
\nSamples were submitted for a range of contaminants,
\nincluding urea. Urea sampling is not a common test,
\nso specialist laboratories had to be found for these
\nworks, although the turn-around time for the
\nspecialist analysis was protracted. This confirmed the
\nsource to be urea, and its breakdown products.
\nContamination was noted around the HGV filling area
\n(the likely source area) but also in water and sediments in an adjacent
\nwatercourse. The ground at the site consists of a stiff clay, with little
\ngroundwater, and flooded during heavy rain. Soils between the source
\nand the watercourse were unimpacted, so it was considered that the likely
\ntransmission route was via high-permeability pathways during heavy
\nrainfall events, such as pea-gravel beds, located around drainage services,
\nwhich ran to an interceptor, that discharged to the watercourse.
\nInvestigation by Geo2 could find no record of a similar significant Ad-Blue
\nrelease. There was no UK precedent, so rapid action on determining safe
\nsite-specific target values was required, establishing a remediation
\nworking plan and engaging and agreeing the methods with the client,
\ncontractor and regulators in order to progress the works safely, quickly,
\nefficiently and legally.
\nRemediation was undertaken in the source area by mass excavation and
\ndisposal. As validation sampling turn-around times for urea were too long
\nto be pragmatic, excavation was undertaken using hand-held vapour
\nmeters to field screen material. Careful screening of material was required,
\nas the high organic content meant that significant disposal costs would
\notherwise be incurred. In addition, works were undertaken in the adjacent
\nwatercourse to carefully remove impacted sediments from the sides and
\nbase, preventing environmental harm and averting risk to human health.
\nFinal validation of the works was undertaken by a programme of water
\nmonitoring in adjacent watercourses, with regulatory sign-off being
\nachieved.<\/p>\n
For more information:
\nSusan Fairley, Marketing Manager: susan.fairley@geo2.co.uk
\nhttps:\/\/www.geo2.co.uk\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why Ad-Blue is Not Green By Paul Stapleton, Director Geo2 Ad Blue has been regarded in the past as a \u2018green\u2019 product. Investigations by Geo2 as part of a forecourt redevelopment suggested otherwise. A major UK fuel producer and retailer commissioned Geo2, a land remediation specialist, to manage environmental matters during the redevelopment and expansion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-favourites"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Oliver Lupton","author_link":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"Why Ad-Blue is Not Green By Paul Stapleton, Director Geo2 Ad Blue has been regarded in the past as a \u2018green\u2019 product. Investigations by Geo2 as part of a forecourt redevelopment suggested otherwise. A major UK fuel producer and retailer commissioned Geo2, a land remediation specialist, to manage environmental matters during the redevelopment and expansion…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2392,"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions\/2392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forecourt.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}