University Affiliate BlueInGreen Responds to Hurricane-Related Sewage Spill

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BlueInGreen's supersaturated dissolved oxygen system helps clean Shingle Creek in Suffolk, Va., after a sewage spill.

BlueInGreen LLC, an affiliated company of the University of Arkansas, responded last month to a sewage spill in Virginia caused by heavy rains related to Hurricane Sandy.

On Oct. 29, a nine-inch-wide hole opened in a 30-inch concrete pipe in the town of Suffolk, spilling 18.3 million gallons of raw sewage into nearby Shingle Creek. The sewage, which had been on its way to a wastewater treatment plant, flowed into the creek until Nov. 8, when workers completed the installation of a bypass system.

Helping the creek recover from the spill quickly fell into the hands of BlueInGreen, a water-quality management firm located at the Arkansas Research and Technology Park in Fayetteville.

According to Clay Thompson, senior engineer for BlueInGreen, an environmental scientist for the Hampton Roads Sanitation District put out a national call for assistance in helping clean up the spill. He was put in touch with BlueInGreen, which put together a proposal that the district accepted within a week.

“We mobilized and within a week were on site,” Thompson said. “When you have something as concentrated as raw sewage, one cannot count on diluting the raw sewage by directly discharging to a receiving stream or water body. That’s why engineers have designed wastewater treatment plants to receive the collected raw wastewater.”

One of BlueInGreen’s supersaturated dissolved oxygen systems was utilized to pre-dissolve oxygen into Shingle Creek at a rate of 1,400 pounds of oxygen per day, said Thompson, who holds two degrees from the U of A. The raw sewage spill had reduced the dissolved oxygen levels in the creek to levels approaching zero.

For effective bioremediation, the microorganisms that already reside in the creek must have oxygen, said Brent Dobler, BlueInGreen’s sales director.

“Hampton Roads Sanitation District had a very large spill and did not have any other solutions to put oxygen into the creek to help speed the bioremediation process,” Dobler said. “That’s where we came in. What we basically did was to accelerate nature’s bioremediation process.”

The University of Arkansas System holds the patent on the invention and issued it to BlueInGreen. In 2010, the system received an Innovative Technology Award from the Water Environment Federation, an international not-for-profit technical and educational water quality organization.

BlueInGreen was founded in 2004 by University of Arkansas professors Scott Osborn and Marty Matlock along with Virtual Incubation Co., an affiliate company of the University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation, which operates the Arkansas Research and Technology Park.