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The Big Valley facility can handle all types of heavily contaminated
solids and sludges such as oilfield waste filters and tank bottoms.
Also the storage tanks at the facility are used for fuel recycling.
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| The Big Valley Waste Treatment facility is located 4 km north of
the Village of Big Valley, about 20-km south of Stettler and half
way between Calgary and Edmonton. The total area of the plant is 11
acres. |
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The facility is presently being re-permitted by Alberta Environmental
Protection under Approval No. 11531-00-03. The waste streams that
can be accepted include oilfield wastes such as filters, sorbents,
and a variety of sludges and tank bottoms, and all waste types (including
TDG classes 2 to 9)
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| The major treatment technology at the facility is
thermal oxidation. The thermal oxidation plant consists of a rotary
kiln incinerator, a secondary combustion chamber, a wet scrubber system
and continuous emission-monitoring module. The system has been shown
to have Destruction and Removal Efficiencies (DRE) of greater than
99.9999%. Stabilization/Fixation of sludges is another treatment technology
employed at the facility. This technology encapsulates the hazardous
components of the waste sludge with an impermeable covering so that
these components are non-leachable and cannot be released into the
environment. |
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The facility has been designed to the highest industry
standards and to eliminate any possible
impact of the facility on the environment. The incineration plant
includes a gas cleaning plant and emission stacks that result in air
emissions that meet or exceed federal and provincial standards. A
regular monitoring program is in place to ensure that license requirements
and regulatory standards are met. All runoff from the site that has
the potential to come into contact with the processing area is collected
in catch basins and pumped to the liquid storage tanks for use as
cooling water in the incineration process. All wastes are stored on
concrete pads with a liner and leachate collection system. Treated
and untreated material are covered and properly labeled so that only
compatible materials are stored together. All treated material, including
ash and liquid waste from the incinerator and stabilization process
is disposed off site at an approved facility. Comprehensive soil and
groundwater monitoring programs have been established for the site
to mitigate possible impacts of the site on soil and groundwater quality.
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