CONTACT: Nancy Kinner
603-862-1422
WRITER: Virginia Stuart
603-862-3102
UNH DRILLING FOR ANSWERS AT PEASE
DURHAM, N.H.--A University of New Hampshire team of civil engineers, in search of solutions to bedrock contamination, will be drilling for answers at Pease International Tradeport (the former Pease Air Force Base) starting on February 14. Work will be conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Air Force at an environmental cleanup site (Site 32) managed by the Air Force."This is the first time in the country that this approach is being used," says Nancy Kinner, director of UNH's Bedrock Bioremediation Center. The professor of civil engineering and senior member of the Environmental Research Group specializes in research on using naturally occurring microorganisms to clean up contamination in bedrock fractures.
"No groundwater issue is more challenging than dealing with pollutants in deep bedrock formations, and I commend UNH researchers for their dedication to solving this problem," says John E. Sununu (R-NH), who has helped secure $1.6 million in federal funding for the project. "Once contaminants permeate fractures in bedrock, they are beyond the reach of existing cleanup technologies. Although some technologies attempt to deal with this pollution, they can be enormously expensive. Effective and affordable cleanup of this contamination will only be possible through enhanced processes known as bioremediation."
The Pease project will involve drilling at two different sites contaminated by a degreasing agent that overflowed from a waste storage tank and at an uncontaminated site for comparison.
Using a giant mechanical drill, the team will extract cylinders of granite for analysis at the lab. Each 5-foot long, 4-inch diameter bedrock core specimen weighs 125 pounds. "The drill works like a giant cookie cutter," says Kinner, "except the cutter is a grinding diamond shaped like a doughnut."
Drilling requires 3,200 gallons of uncontaminated bedrock aquifer water a day. And every granite core must be meticulously handled to prevent contamination from air or human contact. Once the cores have been drilled, UNH scientists will extract organisms from the fractures and determine if they have the genetic capability to degrade the degreasing agents and how to enhance the process.
For more information, call Nancy Kinner at 862-1422, or email her at nancy.kinner@unh.edu.