Bioremediation of Diesel Fuel from Track Collision Site

DIESEL FUEL RELEASE ON MAINLINE TRACK PROBLEM

An at-grade crossing collision on a track siding with a train and fuel truck released over 1,000-gallons of diesel fuel over a track distance of 175 feet.

TRACK SIDING DIESEL BIOREMEDIATION SOLUTION

The fuel saturated asphalt road and sub-grade were removed and replaced. An initial application of HC-2000 and water were used to flush the mobile phase out of the ballast. A total of twelve (12) applications of HC-2000 (205 gallons) were made over a twelve (12) month period. Degradation monitoring continued for a total of 14 months.  

A water well was located less than 500 ft downgradient from the release.  A monitoring well was installed immediately downgradient from the tracks to ensure that the water well was not impacted.  

No contaminates were detected in the water well. Groundwater Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), BTEX, and (DROs) were degraded below detection limits in the monitoring well.

Diesel Range Organics (DRO) ballast/soil concentrations were reduced by an average of 96.5%.  

TRACK SIDING DIESEL BIOREMEDIATION COST/BENEFITS

The track ballast was treated without taking the track out of service and saved the railroad thousands of dollars in saved track time alone. 50% of the costs associated with this project was due to demonstrating that this release did not impact the well.