2017 Excellence in Environmental Engineering and Science® Awards Competition Winner

Grand Prize - Industrial Waste Practice
and W. Wesley Eckenfelder Industrial Waste Management Medal sponsored by AquAeTer

El Dorado, AR Thermal Treatment Facility Expansion

Entrant: CDM Smith
Engineer in Charge: Robert Burkard, P.E., BCEE
Location: El Dorado, Arkansas
Media Contact: Julia Forgas, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Communications, CDM Smith

Entrant Profile

CDM Smith is a full-service engineering and construction firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The CDM Smith team led engineering and construction for Clean Harbors, Inc.'s El Dorado, Arkansas Thermal Treatment Plant Expansion project. The state-of-the-art $120 million facility represents Clean Harbors' commitment to meeting growing customer demand for the destruction of hazardous and non-hazardous industrial waste streams in an environmentally responsible way, as well as an investment in the Southern Arkansas economy.

The facility is North America's most technologically advanced hazardous waste incinerator, featuring air emissions control technology that meets the federal Clean Air Act's most stringent standards.

In collaboration with Clean Harbors, which designed and constructed the plant's front-end solid waste feed system, CDM Smith performed the design, procurement, construction and startup of the facility's incinerator and cutting-edge air emissions control system. The complex, innovative system features a rotary kiln incinerator/secondary combustion chamber with a combined thermal treatment capacity of 145 million British thermal units (BTUs) per hour. It also features a spray dryer, primary baghouse filter, saturator/condenser acid gas treatment system, secondary baghouse filter, and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) nitrogen oxide removal unit.

Now operational, the facility is adding more than 65,000 tons of expected annual waste destruction capacity to Clean Harbors' network, while adding 120 well-paying jobs for the local community.

Other key project participants included:

Niessen Consultants
Focus Environmental, Inc.
ECCI
Porbeck Engineering Inc.

Project Description

Clean Harbors, Inc.'s El Dorado, Arkansas Thermal Treatment Plant Expansion project represents a major investment to serve a growing industrial sector with an environmentally responsible and cost-effective means of disposing hazardous waste streams. Completed in January 2017, the project adds a third incinerator to Clean Harbors' 370-acre facility that nearly doubles onsite capacity from 90,000 tons of material annually to approximately 155,000 tons each year. For these reasons, it is a strong candidate for AAEES' Industrial Waste Practice Award.

Integrated Approach

Design exemplifies integrated, holistic approach to air and water emissions compliance. The plant's air pollution control system is extremely robust and meets stringent federal Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) emissions limits under a wide variety of waste feeds and operating modes. It is designed not only for zero discharge of wastewater but also to consume 100 percent of the scrubber blowdown from the existing onsite incineration system.
Flexible design enables range of treatment capabilities. State-of-the-art design allows treatment of a wide variety of hazardous wastes, including contaminated soil and water, wastewater and various industrial wastes and byproducts. The system's flexibility enables these feed materials to be received and processed in many forms, including bulk solids, bulk liquids and drummed and containerized materials.
Air pollution control components work in sync. The system features elements not seen at prior U.S. commercial hazardous waste plants, such as a second baghouse filter for meeting stringent particulate emissions limits; dry lime and carbon injection to improve acid gas and mercury emissions control; an advanced acid gas wet scrubbing system; and, a catalytic reduction system for control of nitrous oxide. Working together, these components reliably control residual air contaminants from an extremely wide variety of waste materials while meeting permit limits.

Quality

North America's most technologically advanced hazardous waste incinerator. The equipment and technologies used allow Clean Harbors to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's most stringent air MACT emissions standards under the Clean Air Act.
Careful performance testing assures quality. CDM Smith implemented a methodical startup and performance testing process that met Clean Harbor's performance requirements before the system was turned over. Additionally, CDM Smith is providing a 2-year material, equipment and workmanship warrantee to meet Clean Harbor's expectations with regard to performance and long-term reliability.
Collaborative approach delivers on schedule and budget. CDM Smith coordinated with Clean Harbors from design through startup to deliver the facility on time, within budget and according to specifications. Regular communication resulted in the phased procurement of the facility's major systems and equipment, such as the rotary kiln, which had a 2-year lead time. CDM Smith's team put out initial bid packages for all equipment and engaged vendors early in design to help Clean Harbors obtain a guaranteed maximum price for the project and to expedite the schedule.

Originality and Innovation

Once-in-a-generation requirements met through customization. The first of its kind built in America in more than 20 years, the facility's design required extensive customization to achieve expected waste loading criteria while meeting the required throughput, thermal capacity and emissions limits. Clean Harbors brought its industry-leading expertise to anticipate and incorporate solutions to operational challenges, while CDM Smith brought its expertise to design a unique acid gas wet scrubbing system with 100 percent blowdown reuse. CDM Smith also employed a 3D virtual design and construction (VDC) controls process to minimize field changes and rework, working with subsystem vendors in real-time to incorporate their equipment and check the design for clashes to virtually eliminate construction conflicts.
System integration ensures compliance, improves operational efficiency. A state-of-the-art waste feed and combustion control system integrates with the air pollution control and emissions monitoring system, ensuring compliance with emissions limits while maximizing waste stream treatment capabilities. This system interfaces with the facility's existing waste inventory management system, allowing for efficient planning of incineration campaigns and use of nationwide incineration capacity.

Complexity

Successfully completing this project required the resolution of many complex technical and managerial planning, design and construction challenges. Examples include:

Developing a customized design to meet emissions limits for a system that could process a diverse variety of waste streams.
Integrating multiple vendor-designed and -supplied processing and treatment units.
Interfacing with, and integration of, the owner-designed and constructed front-end solid waste handling and incinerator feed system.
Recycling 100 percent of the scrubber blowdown from new incinerator and the facility's existing incinerator scrubber.
Coordinating around construction adjacent to existing operating facility.
Delivering and assembling large components, including the 127-ton, 40-foot-long, 17-foot-diameter kiln, fabricated in Louisville, Kentucky, and transported roughly 1,300 miles by river barge and tractor trailer.
Programming of an integrated control system encompassing the waste feed, combustion process, air pollution control and emissions monitoring processes, and interfacing with Clean Harbor's waste inventory management system.
Construction that included the orchestration of multiple unit process vendors and specialty subcontractors to meet a firm schedule and guaranteed maximum price.
Maintaining worker safety across all subcontractors and vendors while owner's other construction projects were ongoing at the site.
Maintenance of quality across multiple vendors and subcontractors.

Social and Economic Advancement

Supporting environmentally responsible growth. The project is an investment in meeting the increasing need for safe, reliable and environmentally compliant options for the disposal of hazardous and industrial wastes, particularly for the nearby Gulf Coast and Midwest energy and petrochemical industries.
Investing in the Southern Arkansas economy. The project is also delivering economic benefits to the city of El Dorado and Arkansas through the creation of 120 well-paying new jobs. According to Mike Preston, executive director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, quoted in a Clean Harbors press release, "Not only will the added jobs and investment be an economic stimulus for the area, but the state-of-the-art technology will protect the environment and support good quality of life for all residents."

Click images to enlarge in separate window.


Clean Harbors held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the facility in December 2016. The combined effort of the Clean Harbors and CDM Smith teams, as well as the support of the local community, has resulted in an exceptional contribution to the southern Arkansas economy.	The new unit's air pollution control train is designed to consume not only the new incinerator's scrubber blowdown but also 100 percent of the blowdown from the existing incinerators at the facility, enabling the facility to achieve its zero liquid discharge goal.

The air pollution control train includes a secondary baghouse filter with lime and carbon injection to remove fine post-combustion and internally generated particulate down to 0.0015 grains per dry standard cubic foot of particulate matter to meet new lower emissions limits, as well as control mercury, dioxin, semi-volatile metals and low-volatile metals.	Both the primary and secondary baghouse filters include specialized ash handling systems that greatly reduce the potential for fugitive dust release. These features make the new El Dorado unit the cleanest- running commercial hazardous waste incinerator in the United States.

Rather than incorporating off-the-shelf vendor-supplied subsystems, Clean Harbors and CDM Smith collaborated closely to design the new incineration and air pollution control train as an integrated system with a high degree of customization to treat the full spectrum of wastes produced by Clean Harbors' customers.	The new unit's waste handling capabilities allow the facility to serve a diverse nationwide customer base by providing a reliable and economical option for the complete destruction of contaminated soil, water, wastewater and hazardous manufacturing byproducts. The unit reduces the volume and toxicity of these materials to an ash byproduct that can be safely and responsibly landfilled.

As the industry leader in hazardous waste management, Clean Harbors applied its proprietary tracking and inventory management experience, while CDM Smith contributed its expertise in system automation to equip the new unit's operators with maximum flexibility to control combustion and resulting emissions for the varying content of waste feeds to the incinerator, received by the facility in drums, packages, bulk containers, tanker trucks and railcars.	The new unit includes many unique features developed by the team to solve technical and safety-related challenges inherent in such a unique and complex process, including a fail-safe system for remote operation of the spray dryer emergency vent shown in this photo.

Construction of the facility included overcoming some complex logistical challenges for several large components. In particular, the 127-ton, 17-foot-diameter rotary kiln shell was transported roughly 1,300 miles by river barge and tractor trailer to the construction site.	Successful design and construction of this project involved the orchestration of three engineering subconsultants and 26 major subcontractors and vendors to safely deliver the new process ahead of schedule and within budget.

The multiple waste feed, incineration and air pollution control subsystems are monitored and controlled by a single SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system conceived by Clean Harbors and developed and implemented collaboratively Clean Harbors and CDM Smith. This system allows the processing of the full spectrum of liquid and solid wastes received by the facility while remaining in compliance with stringent air emissions limits.	CDM Smith created and maintained a detailed 3D model of the plant that incorporated equipment vendor and structural/mechanical subcontractor information. The model enabled more thorough shop submittal reviews, reduced construction changes, and produced more timely and detailed record drawings.

The safety of job site workers and the public was paramount during the facility's construction. Full-time safety professionals were an integral part of the site management team to lead training, establish a culture of safe work practices and reward great results. In this photo, CDM Smith North America Unit President Tony Bouchard thanks the site work force for their safety record.	In collaboration with Clean Harbors, CDM Smith developed and implemented a methodical startup and performance testing process to check out and confirm operations prior to turning the plant over to Clean Harbors for commercial hazardous waste operations.

With the addition of the third incinerator at the 370-acre facility, Clean Harbors nearly doubled its annual incineration capacity from 90,000 tons of material to approximately 155,000 tons.	CDM Smith is providing Clean Harbors with a 2-year material, equipment and workmanship warrantee to back the performance and long-term reliability of the facility.

The project has been a significant addition to the local work force, and the facility's construction has also resulted in the addition of 120 permanent well-paying, skilled positions to the local economy.	In addition to creating jobs, the new incinerator is contributing to the economic growth of the region and nation's industrial base by providing a safe, reliable, economical channel for the disposal of hazardous industrial wastes. For many manufacturing industries, the ability to rely on a long-term, economical disposal commitment such as that provided by Clean Harbors is an important enabler of growth and expansion.

As the first of its kind built in America in more than 20 years, this facility was designed from inception to comply with emissions criteria that no other facility of its kind was designed for, representing a once-in-a-generation achievement.