A possible solution to contaminated water under a Utah Air Force base has been falling out of the sky for years.
At the Utah Test and Training Range in the state's West Desert, the Air Force practices dropping fake iron bombs.
The Air Force is also dealing with how to clean up the groundwater underneath the base, which contains the possible carcinogen trichloroethene (TCE). Because of the contamination, the area has been a U.S. EPA Superfund site since 1987.
Iron strips TCE from water, so the Air Force bought a machine to crush up its piles of dummy bombs into small granules (right) and use the iron as a water filter.
Officials plan to drill eight 12-inch bore holes 56 feet into the earth near the base boundary and fill the holes with iron grains from the dummy bombs. The borings will be placed across some of the highest TCE concentrations in the plume reaching into Sunset and Clinton.
As TCE-laden water seeps through the iron columns, which act like a filter, a chemical reaction will strip TCE from the water.
Monitoring wells will be placed in front of and behind the borings so officials can check the barrier's efficacy. And then they will wait.
This is the first time dummy bombs have been enlisted to clean up the environment, and if the test is successful, the use of iron bombs will expand at the Utah site and could be used in other U.S. Department of Defense cleanup efforts.
The Utah base has already been using an iron and sand underground barrier since 2004 to strip TCE out of water headed toward a nearby neighborhood.
Via Deseret News
Crushed iron and dummy bombs - by Hill Air Force Base; WWII bombs - CC license by bobster855
