CSU seeks cleaner uses for dirty byproduct

FORT COLLINS — Some of tomorrow’s roads could be made out of recycled greasy sludge.

That’s the hope of a team of Colorado State University researchers, who are working with a military base in Alaska to come up with uses for the goop that could not only save natural resources but also save money for taxpayers.

“We want to turn it into a substance that can be used for roads or berms or something else the base needs,” said Ken Carlson, a professor in CSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “Finding a use for it would eliminate the need to package and ship it out of state, and it would also save money.”

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The focus of the study is what’s now known as Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage. Elmendorf Air Force Base and the Army’s Fort Richardson were merged in 2010 under the federal government’s Base Realignment And Closure process.

Environmental issues always have been a concern in the sprawling military reservation. The Air Force identified 33 separate Superfund-worthy sites on the base. Soil and shallow groundwater beneath landfills, fuel-storage facilities, training areas and maintenance hangars have been contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons and other fuel contaminants, volatile organic compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, PCBs, pesticides, asphalt and associated chemicals, and heavy metals including lead. 

Liquid wastes from planes and vehicles on the base – such as leftover jet fuel, gasoline or motor oil from planes and vehicles – get dumped into one of the base’s 120 oil/water separators to be treated. As part of that process, however, 10,000 gallons of sludge builds up in the separators.

Because Alaska law prohibits the sludge from being stored in the 49th State, it has to be fed by base personnel into 55-gallon drums and shipped to a state in the “lower 48.” That process costs the Air Force manpower time and U.S. taxpayers more than $400,000 a year.

“Every Air Force base is dealing with this problem of what to do with the sludge,” said Liz Caldwell, assistant director of the Center for the Environmental Management of Military Lands, which is based at CSU. However, most of them don’t have to ship the stuff as far and at such a cost as the Alaskan base does.

Enter Carlson’s team, which is trying to find ways to recycle the sludge into something that can be used on the base instead.

“It becomes almost like roadbed gravel,” Carlson said. “It’s dried enough that they can use it in their dirt roads. Because of the freeze-thaw cycle up there, we’ll have to rely on some evaporation to make it work.

“The whole point,” he added, “is to develop a model that can be used at other bases.”

Many military facilities “are watching this project in Alaska to see what innovative solutions we come up with,” Caldwell said, “because if it could also help them, they are interested in doing it. It has significant environmental benefits.”

Since the project, funded with $500,000 of defense-budget money, got under way last fall, researchers have met with base personnel several times to examine and evaluate the oil/water separators and collect some of the sludgy buildup, which Carlson’s students are analyzing. The researchers will identify what the sludge could be converted to and how best to do it.

Carlson said the reprocessed sludge also might be used to make berms, targets for weapons and even building materials.

The CSU research should be done by this summer, Carlson said. If it’s successful, Caldwell added, the project could have far-reaching implications for the military because the Air Force alone collects more than 500,000 gallons of the sludge each year from the more than 3,200 oil/water separators it operates at bases around the world.

The center, part of CSU’s Warner College of Natural Resources, for years has been researching sustainable management of natural and cultural resources on federal lands. Its on-campus staff includes environmental and compliance professionals, and has technical staff embedded at military installations across the United States and at U.S. facilities in Germany.

However, this project is new for the center, Caldwell said.

“This is the first time we’ve partnered with engineering to not only identify a solution, but also design it and help oversee the installation and implementation,” she said.

The CSU researchers also are working with the Air Force to figure out how to treat the gallons of waste left over from de-icing its equipment. Meanwhile, Carlson’s students are getting experience working on real-world problems.

“They get to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it into the field,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for all of us.”

Dallas Heltzell can be reached at 970-232-3149, 303-630-1962 or dheltzell@bizwestmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DallasHeltzell.