AESI - AESI Addresses Western Maryland RC&D

		AESI Addresses Western Maryland RC&D Funds For Sinkhole Remediation Being Sought (Hagerstown, MD Dec. 19, 2002) -- Associated Engineering Sciences, Inc. is assisting the Town of Boonsboro, MD in its efforts to obtain funding for battling sink holes. Boonsboro has been struggling with sinkholes, and current budget restraints are impeding the Town's on-going efforts. AESI's Bill Bond testified at the quarterly board meeting of the Western Maryland Resource Conservation and Development Council. As the Town's consulting engineering firm, AESI has been helping Boonsboro with its sinkhole problems. The Town of Boonsboro asked the Western Maryland RC&D, Inc., to help develop a proposal to seek funds to help the Town implement a sinkhole-remediation project. The Boonsboro project will demonstrate permanent insulation of a relocated streambed, such as the channel adjacent to Boonsboro’s water treatment plant, from an underlying karst formation using an engineered grout of coal combustion products (CCPs). The proposal would include R. Paul Smith Power Plant (Allegheny Energy's coal-burning plant in nearby Williamsport), which has agreed to provide the ash material for the project. The ash will be mixed with a specified amount of Portland cement or other chemical, and pumped into the channel and harden after flowing into the voids under the channel. Supported by the Maryland Power Plant Research Program (PPRP), the U.S. Department of Energy performed a preliminary survey in November and December 2002, measuring electromagnetic resistivity along a two-dimensional plane between the channel and the lagoon. The survey indicates a strong possibility of a large void space 50 to 70 feet below the surface, adjacent to the treatment ponds. The project would target this area for grouting. Maryland power plants produce about 1.5 million tons of combustion products per year. Currently about half of this production is put to constructive use in highway, mine, and construction applications. The goal of the PPRP is to: 1) demonstrate that a mixture of combustion products (or combustion products and high-lime-content waste products) can replace concrete as cementitious material in most standard geotechnical engineering applications and 2) make additional environmentally beneficial projects economically feasible. Determining whether CP grouts can meet the specific requirements of various geotechnical applications demands careful design of mixtures of the materials and coherent planning of their use. Use of coal combustion products for remediating karst-related problems allows another chance to return these materials “whence they came” in the form of “synthetic rock.” Associated Engineering Sciences, Inc. is proud to be able to assist Boonsboro in this effort, and is pleased to provide its expertise with the sinkhole problems. # # # # << back to news