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Customer Spotlight: Subsurface Environmental Solutions, LLC Using Surfer and Voxler to Model LNAPL Release

Industry Happenings Real Life Applications Voxler Surfer

Andrew Dudley

Wednesday, 30 May 2018

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Golden Software customers possess a broad range of backgrounds, from earth sciences and engineering to education and politics. This vast assortment of backgrounds results in a variety of uses for Golden Software's products. Each customer uses the software in a unique way, and we are pleased to share these stories. Today's blog features Steve Boynton, President and lead remediation specialist at Subsurface Environmental Solutions, LLC (SES). Steve uses Golden Software applications to visualize and model environmental data, where he specializes on sites contaminated with Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (LNAPL). LNAPL liquids include substances such as jet fuel and other petroleum products.

Steve is a Massachusetts Licensed Hazardous Waste Site Professional (LSP) and operates as a sole proprietor out of Andover, Massachusetts. For years, he has been using both Surfer and Voxler to create subsurface models to aid in remedial design and site closure. Steve recently used Surfer and Voxler to visualize and analyze an LNAPL release on a former U.S Air Force base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The air base is home to the New Hampshire Air National Guard's 157th refueling wing, flying KC-135 Stratotanker air refueling aircraft.

Aerial imagery from the former U.S Air Force base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. This is the site of SES' remediation efforts.

The base maintains a subsurface aircraft fueling system consisting of numerous subsurface jet fuel transmission lines, valves and piping vaults. The LNAPL release that Steve evaluated occurred when a valve seal failed resulting in discharge of approximately 9000 gallons of JP8 jet fuel from a fuel piping vault. Through excavation efforts and recovery well installation, an immediate recovery of 6000 gallons was possible around the perimeter of the vault structure. This is where SES was introduced to the project.

SES was contracted to perform a field assessment of the extent of the LNAPL, visualize the contamination plume in three dimensions, and to provide recommendations on future remediation actions if necessary. SES collected 147 soil samples in a 3D sampling array in the immediate area around the vault. The soil samples were analyzed for gasoline and diesel range organic content on- site using an ex-situ Ultraviolet Fluorescence (UVF) spectrophotomer.

The soil samples were analyzed for gasoline and diesel range organic content on-site using an ex-situ Ultraviolet Fluorescence (UVF) spectrophotomer.

Once the data was gathered, a conceptual site model was created by SES using both Surfer and Voxler. Specifically, Surfer was used to create a digital terrain model of the ground surface, as well as surfaces for both the historic high and low groundwater levels. The surfaces were brought into the conceptual site model in Voxler, and incorporated with the soil data. UVF data from the borings were gridded and Isosurfaces were added to the model at various threshold levels. Soil data was also visualized using Voxler's WellRender module to provide a second perspective on the subsurface LNAPL impacts. Steve used a combination of the WellRender module and 3D Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) software to expand the model to include piping, the vault structure, and a remediation equipment building located near the release. The CAD elements were imported to Voxler as 3D DXF files. SES also used Surfer's contour area script (contarea.bas) to help calculate the remaining volume of in-situ LNAPL.

You can hear SES' narrative about the project and get more details about the conceptual model creation by watching a webinar that Steve and I presented together last month. Please see our Surfer and Voxler Webinar: Groundwater Case Study – Modeling a LNAPL Release, which can be found here. Steve also presented a detailed case study of the field and analytical aspects of this project to the Massachusetts LSP Association, which can be viewed on the LSP Association Facebook page. You can find Steve and SES on Facebook here.

The final model created by SES for this project in Voxler showing the extent of the LNAPL release including the boring locations with UVF data rendered along well paths.

Comments 1

Guest - Stephen Boynton on Wednesday, 27 June 2018 14:57

I want to thank Golden Software, Inc. for this featuring Subsurface Environmental Solutions, LLC in this blog post. I invite anyone interested to connect with me via e-mail, facebook, or Linked-in. I also have a website (http://www.subenviro.com) that is undergoing a long-overdue face-lift by my 15 year-old as a class web-design project. The website will be done in July 2018, but you can check it out now and see some other Surfer and Voxler projects I have worked on there.

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