We Are Excited: 1,000 Projects and Counting!

We are very excited to announce that Vertex Environmental has reached a major Milestone – its 1,000th project! There has been a steady building of anticipation amongst staff over the past coupled of weeks leading up to this moment. Who would be the lucky PM to land project VE-1000? It turns out that it was none other than Mike Gawel, Vertex’s first PM, who started working on project VE-003 way back in 2003!

Mike and Vertex have come a long way since then. Looking back here was one of our first in-situ remedial injections:

Notice how professionally Mike Gawel duct taped down that tarp! 😉 As for how we mixed, the early days had us mixing in simple blue plastic drums:

One thing is certain, we’ve really changed how we complete in-situ remediation work. Back in 2003, in-situ remediation was brand new, and most of it was competed using injection wells and whatever chemically compatible equipment we could find. We’re much more sophisticated now.

Remaining in the past, back in 2004 here is our first source zone excavation with installation of horizontal wells (for follow-up in-situ injection work):

Bruce Tunnicliffe is making sure the measurements were accurate to the nearest inch. Now we measure in metric. And hard hats are now mandatory, but a full dark head of hair is not!

This is our very first excavation “seeding”, it was completed using potassium permanganate:

And here is our first Soil Vapour Extraction (SVE) system, installed in about 2005:

We’ve learned so much over the past 999 jobs and eighteen and a half years! Our injections have expanded and grown in complexity, as well as in the number and type of remedial amendments (now in the hundreds). Our treatment systems are now enclosed, and automated, and grown much more sophisticated. And we’ve done so many other interesting things along the way!

Here are a just some of the more significant milestones we’ve passed over the years:

• 2010: High Resolution Site Characterization. HRSC tooling and associated 3D modeling for in-situ contaminant detection, delineation and site characterization brought into Canada for the first time on a permanent basis by Vertex.

• 2011: SMART Remediation. Initiation of the SMART Remediation series of technical conferences of which there have been over 35 in-person and virtual events held across Canada to date.

• 2013: Technical Newsletters. Technical e-newsletters have been issued since this time to communicate news, developments, new capabilities and interesting case studies in the environmental consulting and remediation industry with more than 60 newsletters issued to date.

• 2015: Trap & Treat®. The first of the new generation of activated carbon-based injectable remedial amendments was brought into Canada for the first time, namely Trap & Treat® BOS 100® and BOS 200®. In our opinion, this has revolutionized the in-situ market!

• 2018: Treatment System Rentals. Vertex’s Systems division undertakes a major service change and expansion into equipment rentals via various frac tanks, filter skids and media vessels.

• 2019: Soil Vapour Barrier Installer. Vertex becomes authorized as an applicator of the Geo-Seal® brand of multi-layer soil vapour intrusion barriers by EPRO Services Inc. and commences the service of installing sub-slab vapour barriers for new constructions at contaminated sites.

• 2019: Vertex Moves to New Location. The Vertex office, shop and storage operations outgrew their former multiple leased premises and collectively moved into one larger and completely self-renovated property located at 40 McBrine Dr. in Kitchener, Ontario.

• 2020: Flexible Ex-Situ Permit. Vertex applied for and obtained two new flexible regulatory permits (for Ontario) to allow a wide range of ex-situ remediation activities to be completed on soils at contaminated sites. Great timing for Excess Soils Regs in Ontario!

• 2020: Ph.D. Managed Laboratory. A Ph.D. chemist was hired to manage Vertex’s long-existing, in-house bench-scale testing and R&D laboratory on a full-time basis, with increased capacity for a broader range of testing services, including new product development and even more R&D work.

• 2020: Bedrock Injection Capability Expansion. Yes, that’s right, we now routinely inject into…bedrock! For both plume remediation as well as for PRB installation.

• 2021: Construction Dewatering. Expansion into the construction dewatering services via a strategic personnel hire and acquisition of specialized dewatering system equipment to complement Vertex’s expanding water treatment services.

• On-going: PFAS Remediation Research. Vertex is conducting research into effective methods to remediate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which represent one of the most significant groups of emerging contaminants in Canada at this time.

Which brings us back to Project 1,000. What is it, you ask? Well, for a Site in Cambridge, Ontario, we are gearing up to complete on-site, ex-situ remediation of petroleum hydrocarbon impacts in soil this summer. A remedial approach that is gaining momentum due to the desire to beneficially reuse soils on-site as opposed to treating them as a waste. This is a philosophy whose time has come, and one we are looking forward to facilitating!

We have seen great strides made in environmental contracting over the course of our first 1,000 projects and we are very interested to see what the next 1,000 projects will bring!

Learn more about all of Vertex Environmental’s services and capabilities on our website www.vertexenvironmental.ca. Or feel free to reach out to us any time with your questions or project needs at info@vertexenvironmental.ca.