WRI’s CROW™ Process Cleans Superfund and Other Sites

The patented Contained Recovery of Oily Waste (CROW™) process is an in-situ thermal flushing process that reduces concentrations of oily wastes in subsurface soils, aquifers, and underlying bedrock to residual saturations, thereby immobilizing them.

Because it uses steam and hot water to extract contaminants, such as coal tar, creosote, and petroleum products, directly from the ground, the CROW^TM  process eliminates the need for excavation, minimizing disturbance to the site and reducing costs.  Further economy is achieved when recovered organic stock is reused or sold.

The CROW^TM  technology was developed under the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund Emerging Technology Program and demonstrated under EPA’s Superfund Innovative Technology Evaluation (SITE) Demonstration Program.  CROW^TM  has been used at two Superfund sites:  The UGI Columbia Gas Plant Superfund site in Columbia, Pennsylvania, and the Brodhead Creek Superfund site in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.  Under the oversight of the EPA, the CROW^TM  technology was used to remove almost 11,000 gallons of subsurface contamination without excavation.

Remediation of a two-acre wood treatment site is under way in New Brighton, Minnesota.  There, 75,000 gallons of wood treatment organics have been recovered, and 42,000 gallons of the recovered organic have been reused in ongoing pole treatment operations.

WRI offers the CROW™ process for site remediation or licensing.  Treatability studies have been performed for manufactured gas plant, wood treatment, coke waste, brownfield, and chemical dump sites.