July 25, 2001 - EarthFax Completes Work Under SBIR Grant to Evaluate Efficiency of Biobed Technology
Salt Lake City, Utah - July 26, 2001. EarthFax Development Corporation recently completed laboratory work under a Small Business Innovative Research grant awarded through EPA to evaluate the feasibility of using biobed technology to contain and destroy pesticides and herbicides at agricultural mixing and loading facilities. A biobed is an in-ground treatment unit designed to contain spills of herbicides and other pesticides and to destroy them through microbiological activity as rapidly as possible. Potentially, this technology can provide a low-cost method to reduce point source pesticide and herbicide contamination within the agricultural community in a low-tech fashion that is easy to implement. It is applicable at a scale that matches the size of a majority of the identified spill sites in the U.S., such as farms, golf courses, and pest- control facilities.
A typical biobed construction consists of a rectangular excavation that is filled with a mixture of top soil and readily-available organic amendments such as peat moss and straw. As pesticides are spilled and absorbed onto the material within the biobed, microorganisms that exist within the organic material degrade the chemicals. Pesticides and herbicides used in the experiments included atrazine, metolachlor, alachlor, and acetochlor. These compounds were chosen because of their widespread use, their widespread detection in groundwater, and their association with significant toxicological effects, including carcinogenicity. Results of these experiments indicated that the degradative performance of biobeds towards several of the most commonly used herbicides in the U.S. was exceptional. Degradation of the evaluated chemicals ranged from 73% to 99% after 120 days, depending on the configuration being evaluated.
A summary of this project was published by EPA's National Center for Environmental Research, Office of Research and Development under the title: "Final Report: Biobeds for Containment and Destruction of Pesticides at Agricultural Mixing and Loading Facilities". Copies of this summary are available at http://es.epa.gov/ncer/final/sbir/00/pollution/lamar.html.
EarthFax Development Corporation, located at the Utah State University Research Park in Logan, Utah was formed in 1993 as an affiliate of EarthFax Engineering, Inc. to evaluate biological and other methods for remediation of contaminated sites. EarthFax Engineering, Inc. is an environmental and civil engineering consulting firm with offices in the Salt Lake City, Utah and Lansing, Michigan areas of the United States. The company specializes in characterization and mitigation of environmental concerns at industrial facilities.
