Markets
M&W Solutions is dedicated to delivering our services and products with a single focus of satisfying all stakeholders from the client to the regulators through to concerned citizens and wildlife. The following Market Areas are identified to showcase how the MBS® Technology is applied to different environmental conditions.
Estuaries, Bays, Lakes & Rivers:
These water bodies receive contaminated sediments from rivers and tributaries which drain industrial areas and areas with urban stormwater runoff. Additional activities adjacent to these water bodies discharge contaminants directly into receiving waters.
Restored wetland at New Bedford Harbor Superfund Site
The MBS® Technology is used in these environments using various application methodologies including proprietary “Timed Release” compounds which are dropped into the water and react with contaminants in place.
Sediments Present Risks- Contaminated sediment continues to be a significant environmental problem that impairs the uses of many waterbodies and is often a contributing factor to the over 3,200 fish consumption advisories that have been issued nationwide. The Superfund program uses its Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) authority, in collaboration with other EPA programs and authorities, to cleanup those sediment sites that present an unacceptable risk to human health and/or the environment.
Waterfront Developments:
Significant development opportunities of waterfront properties on older industrialized properties requires a cost advantage to achieve highest and best use of the property. Marine & Waterway Solutions are experts in sustainable development projects involving contamination. Our teaming partners bring turn-key capabilities for redevelopment as marine or maritime use with complete facility and infrastructure planning and design.
Port Facilities & Marinas:
Marine & Waterway Solutions is teamed with Maritime Advisors to work closely in the maritime, transportation and logistics sector. Maritime advisors is comprised of over thirty senior level professionals which include former Port Directors, Department of Transportation Officials, Maritime Commission Experts as well as port facility design professionals form every discipline. Port expansion plans hampered by contamination and excessive projected remediation costs can benefit tremendously from the cost savings associated with The MBS® Technology. Savings well in excess of 40% are achieved with the MBS® Technology when compared to alternative remediation technologies. On large projects these savings can add up to millions of dollars.
Shipbreaking & Boat Yards:
Historically, boatyards used for the manufacture and servicing of watercraft and associated equipment have produced metals and other contaminants directly adjacent to surface waters. The industry was unregulated environmentally and old remnants of prior business practices can benefit from the MBS® Technology. As these valuable properties are expanded or converted to more profitable land uses, dealing with metals with a long term permanent solution provides the greatest returns for expended dollars. Shipbreaking activities were also less regulated in the past and the MBS® Technology can be a tremendous cost savings tool. M&W Solutions can implement a waste minimization and pollution prevention plan for management and processing of wastes collected or generated during Breakdown activities and the MBS® Technology can address older areas with disrupting current operations.
Dredge Operations:
Hydraulic dredging of sediments from navigable waterways is a well established critical service in the marine and waterway markets. Often these dredged spoils of silt, sand and sediments contain hazardous leachable metals which tend to be located in hot spots in the environment. Expensive testing often times yields data that low levels of metals like arsenic are present, but not in actionable quantities. However, the mere presence of these metals is creating issues for dredge companies who historically were allowed to process collected spoils on nearby undeveloped lands. Even ocean duping was allowed in the past. Today, these practices are now forcing dredge companies to resort to full treatment systems in order to secure new projects. M&W Solutions has developed a proprietary application methodology using MBS® Technologies to address this issue without interfering with dredge productivities.
Dam Structures & Containment Dikes:
Leachable metals which are bound to sediments or are in solution and drop out of the water column over time, tend to accumulate on the upstream side of a dam or containment dike. When maintenance dredging activates are undertaken, these metals can be treated using the proprietary application presented in the Dredging Market Sector write described above. However, M&W Solutions also offers alternative applications of the MBS® Technology which are done in-situ with out excavation or dredging of any sediments. These in-situ applications can become part of a municipalities standard maintenance programs and are extremely cost effective.
Sludge Lagoons & Treatment Ponds:
Similar to dams and dikes, lagoons and treatment ponds tend to accumulate sediments with leachable metals. Industrial processes often produce metal contaminated sludges which are dried in settling ponds or lagoon storage pits. An unlined pit may generate a plume of metals contaminated stormwater through cracks or gaps in a lagoon or through natural degradation of lagoon system designs over time. M&W Solutions has an answer for this issue both during the manufacturing process and post lagoon storage. MBS® Technologies can be introduced into the manufacturing process at a convenient point and all sludges may be contaminant free prior to storage in the lagoon. Lagoons with past issues may be able to use the MBS® Technologies as a part of a slow release mitigation plan designed to prevent future leaching from the lagoon.
USEPA-SITE MBS® Evaluation Report (Link)
USEPA-SITE MBS® Evaluation Report (PDF be patient 718 Kb 56 pages)
MWS Master Marketing Document (PDF be patient 2.7MB)
Stormwater Management:
Non point source pollution from common household practices are unregulated but cerate tremendous quantities of metals contamination in our environment. This issue is the USEPA”s number one top priority and the MBS® Technology provides a major answer to this all encompassing problem. Metals and hydrocarbons from fossil fuels become bound to sediment on a street and these bound up particles transfer pesticides, oils and metals to our waterways. New regulations which limit the Total Maximum Daily Loads of pollution which can reach a surface water body. M&W Solutions can develop a comprehensive plan with integrated stormwater management technologies to aprovide pretreatment, removal and best management practices to address the issue. Whenever sediments with leachable metals are removed from stormwater, these collected materials can be treated with MBS® Technology to lower disposal costs. As a pollution prevention mechanism, MBS® Technology can be introduced into storm water management systems to react with these sediments s and render the metals non leachable in the event the sediments ultimately reach a waterway.
Wastewater Treatment:
When large volumes of water are contaminated with metals, M&W Solutions has multiple technologies which can be deployed specific to the nature of the wastewater process and/or type of pollutants. Many industrial wastewater treatment operations produce a sludge which may contain leachable metals and treatment with MBS® Technology provides a great alternative to transportation and expensive disposal. Other systems can be modified with an in-line treatment process which can introduce MBS® Technologies directly into manufacturing operations to eliminate the metals issue altogether. Lastly, M&W Solutions can integrate the WITS Technology to use Electrocoagualtion for higher volume wastewater treatment.
Dams & Dikes:
Bridge Maintenance & Transportation Corridors:
Corrosion protection for metal bridge structures requires sandblasting or paint stripping at fixed intervals as a part of routine scheduled inspection and maintenance. With the aging infrastructure concerns all over the country and globally, inspection maintenance programs are generating multiple metals contaminated waste streams. Additionally, right of way acquisitions for road construction and expansion activities often encounter contaminated sites which disrupt project timelines and increase projects costs. M&W Solutions is keenly focused on the bridge maintenance market with the MBS®- IFS paint stripper technology. M&W Solutions can also introduce MBS® Technology into the sandblasting media to bind metals before they become fugitive and go airborne leaving the project site. M&W Solutions deem all proposed solutions or applications of the MBS® Technology must be cost effective on initial price, must produce a positive cost benefit result and must absolutely deliver a value proposition that can be quantified.
Smelting Operations:
The smelting of ore or other recycled materials produces a slag or waste leachable metal compound which must be treated and disposed of cost effectively. The US EPA participated in a treatability project of leachable metal waste slag at a Midvale site in Utah under the EPA Superfund Innovation Technology Evaluation (SITE) program. Massive quantities of metal contaminated slag required treatment at the Utah site and the MBS® Technology successfully demonstrated the effectiveness to reach or exceed targeted clean up levels. The successful SITE project, demonstrates the applicability and treatability of waste form smelting operations using MBS® Technology and provides the regulatory compliance approval documentation required for new projects.
Power Plants Stack Gases:
Mine Tailings:
Eureka Mine, Utah
Abandoned mine lands (AMLs) present serious threats to human health and the environment.
The EPA AML program defines AMLs as:
"Those lands, waters, and surrounding watersheds contaminated or scarred by extraction, beneficiation or processing of ores and minerals, including phosphate but not coal*. Abandoned mine lands include areas where mining or processing activity is temporarily inactive."
USEPA-SITE MBS® Evaluation Report (Link)
USEPA-SITE MBS® Evaluation Report (PDF be patient 718 Kb 56 pages)
MWS Master Marketing Document (PDF be patient 2.7MB)
Lead Paint Removal:
Military Gun Ranges:
Gun range in former Jug End Resort, Massachusetts
Lead is deposited at shooting ranges as spent lead shot (pellets) at clay target shooting ranges, and spent lead bullets in soil berms at rifle/pistol shooting ranges. The lead is not insoluble in the soil environment, but is readily released in a soluble form. Soil lead concentrations >10,000 mg Pb kg-1 soil are commonly reported at shooting ranges around the world, including in New Zealand, USA, England, Germany and Scandanavia. For lead, the ANZECC guideline limit for further investigation is 300 mg kg-1.
It is the norm, rather than the exception, that shooting ranges are contaminated with lead.
Lead contaminated soil at a former skeet shooting range in Massachusetts was succesfuly stabilized and reused onsite using MBS® Technology in a solution that also solved the problem of closing a landfill.
-Check here the article from the "Soil & Groundwater Cleanup" magazine in July 1998 (1MB PDF)
-Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Letter (PDF)
Redevelopment Projects:
Manufacturing Facilities:
Product Packaging: