A CDM-designed ground water optimization project has been selected as a best practice by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The cost-effective ground water remediation project will be documented in DOE's 2009 Best Practices in Sustainable Environmental Stewardship database.

The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant X-749/X-120 Area ground water optimization project is mitigating the off-site migration of a 4-million-square-foot (approximately 91 acres) ground water contaminant plume from the Portsmouth reservation, as well as augmenting remedial actions. Of the project's eight optimization tasks, Task 5, Additional Monitoring Locations, meets the DOE waste minimization criteria for this best-in-class award nomination. Task 5 involved the installation of seven new ground water monitoring wells within and near the X-749 landfill to provide performance monitoring data and determine contamination and migration.

Well installation utilized a Geoprobe 8040 drill rig with direct-push technology (DPT). The technique enhanced worker safety by reducing potential exposure to radioactive and trichloroethene-contaminated soils and by minimizing the potential for trapped methane ignition. The DPT approach also reduced the waste typically generated by traditional auger drilling methods, saving nearly $50,000 in waste transport and disposal costs.

The DOE best practices award recognizes projects that involve cost-effective business practices to improve sustainable environmental stewardship performance, provide a new idea/technology not widely implemented throughout DOE, and have applicability at other DOE sites.

Since 1991, CDM has provided a wide range of environmental and other services at the Portsmouth location, a former uranium enrichment facility. Under subcontract to the current environmental management contractor for the Portsmouth site, CDM conducts all of the site's environmental compliance sampling and reporting, remedial characterization, remedial actions, and post remediation surveillance and maintenance.

Founded in 1947, CDM, with headquarters in Cambridge, Mass., is a consulting, engineering, construction and operations firm with clients worldwide.