There’s going to be a lot of big construction equipment on Derwent Avenue for the next few weeks. An underground oil tank mid-block has been leaking and the site has to be cleared of the tank and oil contamination.
According to Nate Thompson, one of the owners of Environmental Management Associates Inc., the company handling the cleanup, there will be three weeks of work at the site. The 550-gallon oil tank has already been dug up and removed. But the company must now prepare the area to remove some 500 tons of soil. Long steel posts that were delivered to the site on Tuesday will be driven into the ground to protect the gas and water pipes so that they are not damaged during excavation. EMA must then pump out and treat the groundwater on the site before the soil is removed. Thompson says his firm handles 10 to 12 remediations of this size every year.
