Contaminated soil may have a place to recover if Juneau’s Bicknell Inc. gets the permits for its proposed land farm near the end of Industrial Blvd.
The Bicknell land farm measures 6,000 square feet and is underlain with an impermeable liner. The farm then has a layer of sand and six inches of gravel and the entire area is covered by a 15-foot tall pole barn. Its purpose is the remediation of soil contaminated with petroleum, primarily home heating oil.
Bicknell Inc. is owned by Roscoe Bicknell III and Roscoe Bicknell IV, the company’s president.
“We’re still looking at it, still going through the permitting process,” said Roscoe Bicknell IV.
Bicknell said the land farm helps keep resources in Juneau. A certain amount of soil is contaminated by home heating oil and similar fuels in Juneau, but there isn’t a place in town now in which to rehabilitate the dirt, Bicknell said.
“People must ship it out,” Bicknell said. “We want to keep it all local.”
Locals with contaminated soil should contact the Department of Environmental Conservation. A local contractor can be hired to move the contaminated soil to Bicknell’s land farm, Bicknell said.
Bicknell said the process his company uses to clean the contaminated soil is proprietary and a secret; it does involve aeration. At the end of the process the soil can be reclaimed as fill material or top soil.
“It’s better than shipping it to Oregon to a big hole in the ground,” Bicknell said.
Bicknell said he has a temporary permit to stockpile contaminated soil now.
“I think everything should be underway this season,” Bicknell said. “Just waiting for the tail end of the permitting process.”
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (13)
Add commentBeen there and done that,
One of my business's in the lower 48 had petrolium polution, you place oil eating bacteria in the soil, airiate and sometimes, to speed up the process, include dry dog food.
In the end, just time and turning will do the trick!
Smart way to go!
By starting a bioremediation process for profit, they can fund the cleanup of their own asphalt batch plant site. If Red Sam had done that with their Dimond Park site, the elementary school may not have run into the cost overruns for contaminated soil cleanup that the taxpayers footed the bill for. Of course, Stevens Passage wouldn't have made all that money on their dirt burning process at Lemon Creek (at our expense). Way to go, Spike!
I wonder about the impact on
I think this is a great idea but how close is this to the wetlands and is this business then going to want to expand? Bicknell Inc has other properties and so is there a better location for this sort of business? Bicknell Inc. requests a lot of zone changes to commercial.
We need to keep our wetlands free from more industrial development.
One of the best things about Juneau is our wetlands lets keep it this way. Our wetlands have already seen the expansion of the airport, we have the sewer treatment plant, the dump, the lemon creek area has been industrialized and it is one big mess over there. etc, etc, etc...
Jumpstart
Pay attention. This process is actually cleaning up an industrial threat to the wetlands on it's present site. With the process started, why not clean up more contaminated dirt at the same time. This is a very green proposal. Besides, why do you think they call it INDUSTRIAL Blvd.?
Pay attention? what do you
Pay attention? what do you think I am doing skirkz? I understand green but "location" is important. Giving up wetland for green is contradictory.
Just how close is this to the wetlands skirkz?
"Why do you think they call it industrial blvd"?
Answer:
because "they" were dumbasses to allow this area to be industrialized.
pay attention
jumpstart, it's just posturing ploy with condescention. Means nothing.
Jumpstart
The location of the proposed remediation was the site of an asphalt plant. It's ALREADY contaminated! This cleans it and other contamination up. What part of this makes you question the impact on the wetlands? This project IMPROVES the impact on the wetlands.
whats with the attitude
whats with the attitude skirtz? the public has a right to know.
good lord.
If you know so much why not just provide a link to where the info is?
CBJ permiting? DEC permiting? I have been looking.
Not attitude...
...but frustration. ITS A CLEANUP! What ARE the impacts of a cleanup? I have nothing on the permitting process to give you. That will be made public. May already be a sign in Bicknell's yard off Industrial Blvd. But try googling the process.
Wikipedia: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfarming
EPA: http://www.epa.sa.gov.au/xstd_files/Site%20contamination/Guideline/guide...
I applaud them for cleaning
I applaud them for cleaning up there mess, but then telling you to bring your mess into their yard too kind of makes me cringe. Clean up the wetlands site but dont turn around and recontaminate it. Do that someplace less fragile, like next to the dump
The dump?
Oh, yeah. The other end of the wetlands from the sewage treatment plant and across the channel from North Douglas septic leach fields and outflows. IT ALL RUNS DOWNHILL!
Six of one or half a dozen of the other.
Oops!
Oops!
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