Owner/Client
FirstEnergy Generation Corporation
Location
Georgetown, PA
CEC Services
- Treatability
- Groundwater Remediation
- Wastewater Treatment
Owner Objective
FirstEnergy Generation Corporation (FirstEnergy) is a regional power generation company providing power to Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Its Little Blue Run (LBR) facility, a 965-acre impoundment above a 400-foot high earth and rock dam within a 1,600-acre permit area, is the largest coal ash pond in the country. LBR has been used for slurry-placed disposal of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) scrubber sludges for the 2,490-MW Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power station scheduled to be closed in 2016.
FirstEnergy sought regulatory compliance for arsenic in the company’s coal combustion residual impoundment seeps prior to discharge into the local waterways. To accomplish this, a treatability study was requested to assess and compare the arsenic removal potential for numerous technologies in a laboratory bench test. This required first developing a work plan for DEP approval. The work plan was approved and used to develop the framework for the treatability testing.
CEC Approach
CEC systematically reviewed several competing arsenic mitigation technologies and judged them on a multi-point scale based on site-specific considerations and treatment goals. CEC selected the two highest-scoring technologies and then bench tested these technologies in a CEC treatability lab. The bench-scale studies included both continuous flow and jar testing.
Based on the bench-scale results, the ideal technology to remove arsenic from impacted water was determined based on site specific criteria, and CEC is currently conducting a three-month on-site pilot-scale trial of this technology.
