A refinery safely processed oil contaminated wastewater while avoiding 3rd party disposal costs using Veolia’s BioHealth biological treatment monitoring technology.
During the re-coating of refinery piping, large volumes of oil contaminated water were collected and stored in temporary frac tanks. It was believed the high level of contaminants would be harmful to the plant’s wastewater biological system, so the initial plan was to send the water offsite for disposal at a high cost to the customer.
An experiment was developed utilizing Veolia’s BioHealth technology to identify the potential for processing the contaminated water on-site through its wastewater system.
The laboratory experiment consisted of hand blends of the contaminated water and the refinery’s general wastewater at various concentrations.
Our BioHealth monitoring technology provided an indicator for wastewater biological treatment bacteria health. It was utilized to determine the effects the contaminated water would have on the overall wastewater microbiological population.
Result
A safe processing rate was calculated from the BioHealth results:
- 400,000 liters of contaminated water were safely processed through the refinery’s existing wastewater system, avoiding offsite disposal.
- The refinery avoided an associated disposal cost of $120,000.