Statement of Qualifications
INTRODUCTION
Thermal Remediation Services, Inc. (TRS) is a Washington State Corporation that provides in situ Electrical Resistance Heating (ERH) remediation services throughout the United States. TRS presently has a staff of 22 working from regional offices located in Washington, Oregon, Montana, California, Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and Delaware. Our corporate headquarters is located at 2325 Hudson Street, Longview, WA 98632, (360) 425-8121.
Our reputation is built through hard work and trust because in the end our word is who we are. We promise our customers certainty that their projects will be completed to the performance and budgetary assurances presented in our proposals. We have built solid business relationships based on mutual trust and customer satisfaction backed by superior engineering and customer service. We guarantee our results and complete our projects in a timely manner.
Feedback from our client satisfaction surveys is consistently outstanding. Our customers trust us to provide accurate site evaluations and pricing in the project planning stages and to then follow-up with an excellent product and superior customer support. The following quote is from a response to a recent customer survey.
“TRS is a niche provider of electrical resistance heating services, whose staff blend strong technical and engineering expertise, real world field and project experience, and contractor business acumen.”
In a survey conducted by TRS in 2006, 100% of the respondents who have previously worked with TRS said they would refer TRS to a business colleague or customer.
TRS has been responsible for developing the professional engineering and operational standards and procedures for in situ thermal remediation using ERH. No other group in the world has more experience than our team in remediating chlorinated volatile organics, petroleum hydrocarbons and NAPLs using ERH.
As the most experienced ERH Technology provider having conducted over 75% of all ERH projects ever completed, TRS has developed an extensive database on the effect of subsurface heating on the in situ, abiotic and biotic remediation of chlorinated solvents. This experience, data and “know how” has been gathered on over 50 of the estimated 65 ERH projects ever implemented.
The on-going remediation at Fort Lewis, Washington, is the worlds largest and the most complex ERH remediation of non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) performed by any ERH provider. At this site, TRS has captured the most extensive base line data set and the most extensive operational data parameters for the evaluation of the impact of heat enhanced in situ, biotic and abiotic mechanisms for the remediation of chlorinated ethenes ever gathered on an ERH project.
TRS is taking this Heat Enhanced Bioremediation experience from the Fort Lewis project and the 50 other TRS ERH remediation projects and transferring this experience and “know how” on data collection, remediation monitoring, near-real-time decision making processes, hydraulic control, heat enhanced multi-phase extraction, and heat enhanced in situ destruction of TCE (both abiotic and biological) directly to other remediation projects.
The specialty ERH equipment owned and used by TRS is the largest and the highest quality available in the industry today. Our fleet of ERH specialty equipment gives us at least three (3) times the capacity of any other in situ thermal remediation provider.
THE TRS ERH PROCESS
TRS ERH Process. TRS has developed a unique and highly effective methodology for in situ thermal remediation using ERH that we call the "TRS ERH Process.”
Quick and Even Heating. The TRS ERH Process quickly and evenly heats the subsurface to the boiling point of water by passing electrical current through contaminated soil and groundwater. This gentle heating evaporates volatile contaminants in situ and steam strips them from the subsurface. Vapors and steam are then extracted, cooled, and treated using standard methods.
Seamlessly Integrates Other Technologies. The TRS ERH Process properly manages electricity, steam, NAPL, groundwater and vapors for a safe, efficient and effective cleanup. Our process is unique in its ability to transfer heated vapors and liquids to the surface. We have also solved the challenges of hydraulic control and the use of vapor treatment systems in conjunction with ERH.
Flexibility. The TRS ERH Process offers more flexibility and control in subsurface heating than any other in situ thermal technology. The TRS ERH Process can remediate small (less than or equal to 1,000 square feet), medium (several thousand square feet) or large sites (multiple acres). The TRS ERH Process can direct electricity into multiple areas and discrete subsurface intervals simultaneously at varying energy outputs for rapid and aggressive source area remediation or gentle heating for heat enhanced biotic and abiotic in situ contaminant degradation. No other company has perfected the same level of heating flexibility and control.
The Benefits of ERH
Tough Sites Closed. The TRS ERH Process has closed sites where other technologies have been attempted with very limited or no success.
Rapid Remediation. Most sites are cleaned within 6 to 12 months – smaller sites in 2 or 3 months.
Mass Removal or MCLs. ERH can effectively reduce contaminant mass in soil and groundwater by over 99%. MCLs are achievable.
Few Subsurface Limitations. ERH works almost anywhere. Utilities, NAPL, contaminant depth, and subsurface lithology do not limit its use.
Clean Under Buildings and Operating Sites. ERH can be applied under operating facilities and public areas, allowing unrestricted access.
Total Plume Solution. Heat enhanced biotic and abiotic reactions provide continued remedial benefits after ERH. Combined technologies can polish residual contamination or economically treat beyond the source area.
Economical. No other technology can offer equal levels of chlorinated NAPL cleanup in the same timeframe for the same price as ERH.
Guaranteed Performance. Because the TRS ERH Process is so robust and due to our extensive experience and success performing ERH in just about every site condition known, TRS is willing to guarantee price and performance.
Why Use TRS?
Experience. Members of our professional staff have performed over 75% of all ERH projects. They have designed, installed and operated ERH systems at sites across the United States, in almost every lithology that is saturated and unsaturated. Only TRS makes the lessons learned from the largest, the deepest, and the most complex ERH projects available for your site.
Expertise. Our staff consists of nationally recognized experts in each of the crucial aspects of the TRS ERH Process. Our expertise covers electrode design, steam, vapor and NAPL recovery, and hydraulic control to data collection and site closure strategies.
Certainty. We promise our customers certainty that their projects will be completed to the performance and budgetary assurances presented in our proposals. We have completed 100% (51) of our ERH remediation projects to contract and performance specifications and often surpass specific numerical or mass removal project goals.
Innovation.Members of our staff have been at the forefront of each improvement in the ERH technology. We are currently leading efforts to combine ERH with bioremediation and chemical oxidization to lower pricing and provide a total contaminant plume solution.
Capacity. TRS has a network of 16 offices throughout the U.S. This gives us greater access to projects and local knowledge. We also own the largest fleet of ERH specialty equipment in the world giving us at least three times the capacity to conduct ERH projects than any other provider.
Partnering. While TRS has primed several large ERH projects, we typically team with consultants to solve their client’s remediation challenges. This arrangement allows the consulting group to participate in the ERH remediation and bring their specific expertise and local knowledge to the project.
What our Customers Are Saying
Trust. Feedback from our client satisfaction surveys is outstanding. Our customers trust us to provide accurate site evaluations and pricing in the planning stages and to then follow-up with an excellent product and superior customer support. More of our customer quotes can be found at Client Testimonials.
About TRS
Performed 75% of Worldwide ERH Work. TRS is proud to announce its 7th year of continued leadership in the ERH remediation industry. Our professional team has led the ERHmarketplace since 1997, and has performed over 75% of the ERH projects completed worldwide. Because of our experience, we are commonly selected for the largest and most complex ERH projects.
Contractor of Choice. Our clients include the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, state and local governments, Fortune 500 companies, law firms, and consulting engineering firms.
100% Safety Track Record. We are proud of our safety record. TRS has ZERO OSHA recordable accidents in over 150,000 hours worked. Our EMR rating is 0.89.
Technology Backed By Contracting. We are the ERH leaders in guaranteed fixed price remediation (GFPR) contracting and stand behind the completion of each of our projects. We frequently guarantee not only the price but also the performance of the TRS ERH Process.
R&D Leader. TRS is licensed by Battelle to apply all of the ERH patents developed by the US Department of Energy and we have patents pending for heat-enhanced biodegradation and chemical oxidation.
PROJECT and CONTRACTING SUCCESS
We have completed 100% (51) of our ERH remediation projects to contract specifications.
Thirteen of our ERH projects were based on Guaranteed Fixed Price Remediation (GFPR) contracts and 38 were based on our Standard Fixed Price (SFP) Remediation contract. We are presently performing 10 new ERH projects – five of which are GFPRs.
View our Completed Projects to see where TRS has performed in situ thermal remediation using ERH.
Remedial Goals Met & Surpassed
We have met the remedial goals on 100% of our ERH remediation projects and surpassed them on several Guaranteed Fixed Price Remediation (GFPR) projects, several by orders of magnitude including -
- Queens, NY – In 2006, TRS achieved greater than 99.999% average reduction of PCE in soil. Twenty-four of 25 confirmatory soil samples were non-detect for PCE in just five months of ERH operations. (more information - PDF)
- Olney, IL – In 2004, TRS achieved greater than 99.999% average reduction of TCE in soil following 59 days of ERH operations. This was a GFPR based on project completion within 20 weeks from notice to proceed (NTP), a numerical goal for TCE in soil and $5,000 per day in liquidated damages for each day of operations beyond 20 weeks. TRS completed the project within the 20 weeks of NTP. The original remedial goal was based on an 82% average reduction of TCE in soil. (more information - PDF)
- Springfield, MO – In 2005, TRS achieved anaverage 99.96% reduction of TCE in soil and 99.9% reduction of TCE in groundwater in four months of operations. The remedial goal was based on reducing the 90% UCL for TCE in soil to 0.4 mg/kg, a reduction of about 99%. The beginning average TCE concentrations were 325 mg/kg in soil and 8,400 μg/l in groundwater. The final average TCE concentrations were 0.119 mg/kg in soil and 10 ug/l in groundwater. (more information - PDF)
- Great Lakes, IL – In 2006, TRS achieved a greater than 99% average reduction in PCE concentrations in soil in just over four months of ERH operations. The remedial goal was based on reducing PCE concentrations by 95.5%. The contract for this project was based on Pay for Performance and a guaranteed fixed price. (more information - PDF)
- Paducah, KY– In 2003, TRS achieved an average 99% and 98% reductions of TCE in soil and groundwater and recovered more than 30,000 lbs TCE mass during five months of ERH operations. The goal was an average 75% reduction in TCE in soil and groundwater. (more information - PDF)
- Annapolis, MD – In 2006, TRS achieved a greater than 95% average reduction of 1,1,2,2 – tetrachloroethane (TeCA) in soil following four months of ERH operations. The interim soil-sampling event was non-detect following eight weeks of ERH operations. The remedial goal was an average 95% reduction of TeCA in soil. (more information - PDF)
- Chicago, IL – In 2006, TRS achieved 20 mg/kg of PCE and 124 mg/kg of TCE in soil following four months of ERH operations using sheet pile electrodes. The remedial goal was 240 mg/kg PCE and 1,300 mg/kg TCE in soil. (more information - PDF)
- Ft. Wayne, IN – In 2004, TRS achieved a 93% reduction in TCE mass following four months of operations. The goal was a 90% reduction in TCE mass. (more information - PDF)
- Downers Grove, IL – In 2005, TRS achieved a greater than 99% reduction of TCE in soil. The goal was based on reducing the 95% UCL for TCE in soil. The beginning average TCE concentration in soil was 137 mg/kg, respectively. The final average TCE concentration in soil was 0.559 mg/kg.
- Chicago, IL – In 2002, TRS achieved a 99% average reduction in PCE in soil following 120 days of ERH operations. The goal was an average 90% reduction. (more information - PDF)
KEY STAFF
Our team of highly skilled and experienced professionals is the world’s most experienced project team in the design, construction, and operations of ERH in situ thermal remediation systems. We are highly experienced in the safe execution of over 50 remediation projects using ERH since 1997 and hundreds of remediation projects using other in situ technologies, from the late 1980’s, including soil vapor and multi-phase recovery. Many of these projects are considered extremely difficult to remediate, for a multitude of contaminants including DNAPLs, LNAPLs, creosote, TCE, methylene chloride, diesel, kerosene, and BTEX constituents. We also have more experience than any group in the world deploying ERH safely and effectively in the presence of underground utilities, buried metallic debris, and underneath operating industrial buildings, shopping malls, and roads.
TRS professionals have been working with the ERH technology since 1997 and have designed or operated greater than 75% of the full-scale ERH applications in the world that have been operated through completion. Since ERH was first introduced to the marketplace in 1997, the TRS professional team members have successfully designed, built and/or operated ERH systems on 51 commercial projects, and are presently in the process of designing or deploying ERH remediation systems on 10 new sites.
TRS founders and employees have over 150 years of combined commercial project experience in the design, construction and operations of in situ soil and groundwater remediation systems including vapor extraction, air sparging, multi-phase recovery, chemical oxidation, bioremediation, and ERH. No other company in the world approaches this level of design capability and application experience.
Resumes of our key staff can be found at Resumes.
SPECIALIZED PERFORMANCE WITH TREATMENT TECHNOLOGIES
TRS has been responsible for developing the professional engineering and operational standards and procedures for in situ thermal remediation using ERH. No other group in the world has more experience than our team remediating chlorinated volatile organics, petroleum hydrocarbons and NAPLs using ERH. TRS professional team members have successfully designed, built and/or operated over 75% of all ERH projects worldwide (50 of ~ 65 projects). We are in the process of implementing ERH remediations at the former Navy Base in Alameda, CA, the Pemaco Superfund site in Maywood, CA, the Fort Lewis Army Base in Tacoma, WA, at several sites in the Atlanta, GA area, Everett, WA, El Centro, CA, Paterson, NJ, Richmond, VA, and Glendive, MT.
TRS maintains the largest, state-of-the-art fleet of ERH specialty equipment in the world, including Power Control Units (PCUs), steam condensers and vacuum blowers. Our equipment fleet gives us at least three times greater capacity than any other company in the ERH remediation industry. The number of PCUs in our fleet (8) allows us to service a greater number of projects and clients at one time and the size (500, 700, 950 and 2,000 kW PCUs) of our equipment provides us with the ability to provide more automated energy into the subsurface over shorter periods of time supporting our ability to rapidly remediate NAPLs.
TRS professional team members have successfully designed, built and/or operated ERH systems on 51 commercial projects. All of our projects involve the full-scale remediation of soil and/or groundwater impacted by chlorinated volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and/or fuel hydrocarbons frequently at NAPL concentrations. All of the TRS projects described are either presently being performed or were performed during the past 3 - 4 years.
Since 1997, we have built on the knowledge base that came from the DOE’s investment of tens of millions of dollars into ERH research and development. We continue to promote a culture of R&D focused on improving the application of ERH based on our experience at each new site. Having now performed ERH on a multitude of sites with varying degrees of complexity, the technical, schedule and budget requirements on our projects are always met and are often exceeded.
Our team of professionals is highly experienced using vapor and steam recovery and multi-phase recovery and treatment systems. TRS has vast experience and expertise with vapor, steam, and liquid recovery and treatment using Flameless Thermal Oxidation (FTO), Granular Activated Carbon (GAC), and Catalytic Oxidation (CATOX). The senior personnel at TRS have over 120 combined years of in situ remediation experience. They also possess a substantial knowledge base and expertise in the implementation of these technologies for the treatment of a multitude of chlorinated solvents, semi-volatiles, and petroleum hydrocarbons.
Our ERH project descriptions can be found at TRS ERH Project Success.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
We are proud of our 100% perfect safety record. We have ZERO OSHA recordable accidents in over 150,000 employee hours. Our Experience Modification Rates (EMR) for the past five years are 2001 – 1.0; 2002 – 1.0; 2003 – 1.0; 2004 – 0.90; and 2005 – 0.89. TRS often prepares ERH-specific Health and Safety Plan for its work at a site that complies with the provisions in 29 CFR Part 1910.120.
TRS is committed to providing safe and healthy work environments. Our corporate goal is Zero Accidents and we have achieved that goal every year since our inception.
Safety is equal, or greater, in importance than quality control, scheduling, site operations, cost control, employee relations and all other parts of TRS’s business. Health and Safety, including protection of TRS employees and the safety of others associated with TRS projects, is integral to all parts of our business.
All TRS field personnel are 40 hour Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) certified and maintain 8-hour refresher training. Training certificates for our staff are available upon request.
ERH SPECIALTY EQUIPMENT FLEET
The specialty ERH equipment used by TRS is of the highest quality available in the industry today. We also have the largest fleet of specialty ERH equipment in the world, giving us at least three times the capacity to perform ERH site remediation projects than any other ERH provider.
Our equipment fleet is valued at just over $4,000,000 and includes one 4,500 kW, four 2,000 kW, one 950 kW, two 700 kW, and three 500 kW Power Control Units (PCUs), nine steam condensers, a half dozen vacuum blower packages, a 1,000 cfm Thermal Oxidizer, and miscellaneous accessories.
Our state-of-the art PCUs, vacuum blower packages, and steam condensers are built by internationally and nationally recognized American manufactures. The U.S. company that manufacturers our PCUs is ISO 9002 certified with over 25 years of experience providing custom and off-the-shelf electrical power supplies to Fortune 100 companies. They are internationally recognized leaders in the design and manufacturing of customized industrial power conversion systems, power centers, and transformers.
Our vacuum blower packages and steam condensers are constructed by a nationally recognized U.S. equipment manufacturer that has over 75 years of combined experience building blowers and vacuum systems specifically for the environmental industry. They are known for producing high quality products that provide trouble free operations, and for their 24-hour support system that helps TRS ensure lost production time is minimized.
All of our PCUs are equipped with advanced remote control and data acquisition systems. These updated systems not only gather information from, and control, the electrodes, they also allow for remote monitoring and control of the ERH support equipment such as the steam condensers, vacuum blowers, and vapor abatement units to be performed in real-time over the internet.
Our 4,500 and 2,000 kW PCUs are the largest units in use today. They are built specifically for TRS using our proprietary designs. Each of our PCUs is accompanied by an autotransformer that allows fine control of the power input at individual electrodes at discrete subsurface intervals.
QUALITY ASSURANCE
TRS is committed to providing services of the highest quality while at the same time giving due consideration to project budgets, schedules, and remediation program requirements. Our Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) establishes appropriate measures to ensure that quality factors are considered equally with regulatory codes, professional standards of practice, and contractually imposed requirements during each phase of design, engineering, construction, and operation. The goal of our QAP is to ensure that overall project management is maintained, production and quality are in compliance with contract requirements, and deficiencies are identified and corrected in a timely manner.
REGULATORY APPROVAL
TRS has successfully obtained regulatory approval and implemented our QAP on ERH remediation projects for federal, state and local governments as well as private customers on project sites located in all 10 EPA Regions and the following states:
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ERH has also been identified as a preferred technology in the Record of Decision (ROD) at two U.S. EPA Superfund sites including Pemaco, California and Fargo, North Dakota.