PumpsOK-Designed Remediation System Serves U.S. Military
Williams Air Force Base in Mesa, Arizona, was an active Air Force installation from 1941 through 1991. Like many military installations that use and store fuel, some of the fuel had leaked from the storage tanks and fuel lines, creating an environmental challenge. How can more than two million gallons of jet fuel be recovered from depths as great as 270 feet below the ground surface?
The answer was in a custom-designed deep well-pumping system engineered and manufactured exclusively by PumpsOK.
Terra Therm was contracted through AMEC by the US Air Force to construct and operate this large remediation project. More than 50 recovery wells were drilled on the site in conjunction with more than 50 steam injection wells. Through this system, large volumes of steam were produced on site and injected into the wells. This pressurized steam then mobilized the jet fuel toward the recovery wells.
At the heart of the remediation project was the Pressure Assisted Vacuum Enhanced Remediation System (PAVERS), designed and built by PumpsOK. Because the steam injection temperatures exceeded 250°F, no conventional electric submersible pump system could be used. Surface-mounted high-pressure Goulds pumps were used to power deep-well stainless steel vacuum eductors so there were no electric components downhole. Each well produced anywhere from 2-11 GPM and created a high vacuum downhole at the point of extraction. The system was incredibly efficient and was the first of its kind to remove two million gallons of jet fuel and jet fuel vapor. The system ran for a little more than a year and achieved its remediation goals.
PAVERS was invented by PumpsOK in the early 1990s and has been successfully deployed in thousands of wells around the US and the world. The system works very well in low flow/low permeability environments and in conditions that are too harsh for electric submersible pumps. PAVERS extracts both liquids and vapors indiscriminately.
