Subscribe to RSSWhy not use red mud and gypsum waste for NOLA levees?
Editor’s note: I believe that the search by the corps of engineers for materials to bolster flood protection levees in the NOLA area has ignored two potentially significant sources, spent bauxite (red mud) and gypsum waste from the long term Louisiana production of alumina and phosphate fertilizer, respectively.
For many years I have unsuccessfully promoted the concept of partnering with the petrochemical industry along the lower river to explore the use of various waste streams in mutually beneficial ways to enhance the coastal environment, reduce flood risk and save energy. We’ve been curiously turning our back on potential win-win-win opportunities.
Could aluminum cans and phosphate fertilizer benefit coastal Louisiana?
I’ve become fascinated with the discussion of sediment needs and sources to reduce flood risk to a 1%/year level in southeast Louisiana. On August 1 Sheila Grissett reported in the Times-Picayune that 30 million tons of material will be transported throughout the NOLA area during the next two years, requiring 50 million extra driven miles on already stressed roadways, adding to traffic congestion and generating untold tons of air pollutants, including CO2. A Times-Picayune story on September 12 describes upcoming meetings to prepare the public for the enormous impact of this program.
Ms. Grissett described 30 million tons (~30 million cu yards) of material as equal to six times the volume of an empty Superdome. This means that John McKeithen’s iconic legacy would theoretically hold 5 million cubic yards of sand or clay.
This dramatic image prompted me to suggest the adoption of the concept of the 5 million cu yard Superdome equivalent (SDE) to effectively communicate large volumes of sediment that are otherwise difficult to visualize.
Apparently one fifteenth of this material (2 million cu yards, or 2/5 of an SDE) will be obtained from the Bonnet Carre (BC) spillway, as reported in another story in the September 12 Times-Picayune. The corps of engineers is said to be gearing up to mine this much clay from within the BC spillway to raise levees in Jefferson and St. Charles Parishes.
The BC spillway, which is flooded by 1/4 the flow of the lower Mississippi River each time it is opened about every decade, is a renewable source for clay. Using this sediment is far preferable to the haphazard digging of multiple borrow pits within the disintegrating delta complex.
The corps has apparently ignored two additional potential local sources of sediment for levees, however. I have never heard anyone suggest the possible use of spent bauxite and gypsum waste that have both been stockpiled for years in huge quantities at barge-accessible sites at the riverbank. The time is right to explore this concept.
I can’t imagine a better way to usefully recycle two waste streams that have for years plagued environmental interests, state and federal regulatory agencies and industry reps. Using these two materials for levee construction would encapsulate and sequester whatever constituents are considered environmental concerns, rendering them at least as harmless as where they are currently stockpiled. Maintenance of these waste piles in place costs money and benefits no one.
Whatever volume of red mud and gypsum waste is available would reduce by that amount the need to dig holes in the delta for levee construction. An additional benefit would be accrued in terms of energy conservation. The strategic location of the twin stockpiles of spent bauxite (red mud) and waste gypsum along the lower river, directly upstream from the levees being bolstered, provides the additional benefit of using gravity to help move them close to where they are needed.
River-borne transport via barge could largely offset the 50 million extra driven miles described by Sheila Grissett to save road damage, energy and benefit air quality. Talk about win-win-win!
I would urge the immediate exploration of two critical issues by the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration (OCPR) : (1) the total quantity of spent bauxite and gypsum waste in current storage; and (2) the geotechnical characteristics of each material in terms of its suitability for levee construction.
I would also urge the Louisiana Department of Economic Development (DED) to get involved in terms of exploring coastal partnerships with industry. It would indeed be encouraging to see Secretary Steven Moret walk across the street from the Capitol Annex to the Capitol building for the meeting of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) on Wednesday September 16.
Len Bahr
21 Comments
2010-05-02
08:24:18
Dears, synthetic gypsum can be turned relatively "simply" to higher value liquid fertilizers. Please contact me, if this solution is of interest. Regards - L. Kondor - Austria
e-mail: kondor@kemia.at
2010-01-19
23:20:56
[...] 2. Mud gardening [...]
2009-09-17
13:44:38
[...] Why not use red mud and gypsum waste for NOLA levees? [...]
2009-09-15
19:49:52
A few minutes of "googling" turned up this link; check out the conclusions; as stated previously--the added material handling and prep costs currently make use of red mud and spent gypsum uncompetitive with virgin clay; permitting and other "access" costs for clay need to rise significantly. Interestingly, permitting is still at DNR and I wonder if they are asking applicants for borrow pit permits for a real analysis of alternatives to proposed projects.
http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/pubs/600r09062/600r09062.pdf
2009-09-15
21:11:42
There were a number of very well-respected estuarine soil scientists that examined the problem and they were the ones who brought the potential problems to the attention of personal of the state and federal agencies. A site visit to an existing disposal site where the viable of plant growth was to be shown only had plants growing in the cracks that were filled by wind-blown material, not red mud. In addition the scientist flown in from Michigan used data from when the material was directly deposited into the Mississippi River citing species that can gulp air to survive, not having to rely only on gills. So many questions remained that the project was finally shelved.
2009-09-15
17:30:11
Ed-
The infamous red mud project that Ivor van Heerden, Marty Floyd and I have commented on above was a proposed small scale demonstration project to see whether spent bauxite (red mud), acidified to neutralize its high pH, could be beneficially used as a mineral soil supplement for use in dysfunctional brackish and salt marshes. The material was subjected to a wide battery of tests in terms of metals leaching, etc. EPA was the federal sponsor of the project, a number of coastal scientists endorsed it including Ivor, Paul Kemp, myself (and I believe Ron Delaune and the late Bill Patrick, both soil chemists and experts on flooded soils).
The opponents included no estuarine soil scientists but they successfully killed the project by insisting on unrealistic test conditions that made it comically cumbersome and expensive.
What I am proposing is not to build marshes with red mud but to use it to form the core of critical levees that would otherwise steal limited sediments that are needed for marshes. The potential risk of toxins leaching from the inner core of a levee is miniscule compared to the very real floods that are on the horizon. And this stuff is already being stored in the coast!
2009-09-15
11:05:54
Len,
We can and do have undue resistance from regulatory agencies but the same agencies also approve of things that are not sufficently tested. Some years back DOTD bought Florolite (trade name), which was a byproduct from hydrochloric acid production, to use for road bed construction. The consultants who had a great deal of political clout provided DEQ with all sorts of test data that showed it to be a safe product. They also provided DOTD with test data showing it was suitable for road bed construction. It turned into a disaster. No one had sufficiently scrutinized the consultant testing. When the Florolite was put down as a road base in the wetlands near Amilia, acid leached down and concentrated to the point were it killed cypress trees and just about everything else adjacent to the road. The weight of the road bed also changed the physical characteristics of the material which compromised the stability of the road base. The samples of the Florolite taken on the top and outside surface of stockpiles had a 5-6 pH range. Samples taken at the base and the interior of the stockpile were in the 2-3 pH range. Guess where the consultants took their samples.
I am only mentioning this because the issue we are discussing here is moving in the direction of political opinions regarding the use of these products. We are talking the politics of policy and it is not likely to get very far unless we can switch the discussion to the merits,liabilities and objectivity of the test data. Its not sexy but if the test data is sufficiently understood by a larger group and delt with and questioned up front and in detail then the opinions will loose political traction. And a more rational approach can be taken. Many think that too much analysis and testing slows down the process. Stripped of politics the opposite is true. Most testing can be accomplished in a short time and will speed up the process if and I stress if it is accurate, sufficient, and objective. Who has the data? Who compiled the data and did the testing? Who is questioning the results?
2009-09-14
23:09:05
The CWPPRA proposal actually had a lot of faults and didn't work. Kaiser would love to give away red mud since everywhere in the rest of the world from Arkansas to Australia requires it to be kept in a permanent hazoudous material landfill because of the potential leaching of materials. The big question by most of the CWPPRA agencies not just two was the use of this type of material in a tidal area unlike confined areas required elsewhere. We have to be careful of what we allow since industry has a lot of things that they would be happy to "give".
2009-09-15
05:43:22
Marty-
With all due respect, in my opinion the problems that you describe reflect exaggerated agency caution that characterizes and stifles all CWPPRA agencies (not just DNR and USF&WS). The long term toxic risk is not exposing red mud to tides, it's the approaching gulf that will ultimately inundate thousands of sites of stored hazardous materials that should warrant serious concerns. The Louisiana coastal Titanic is going down while the agencies deal with their trivial concerns by rearranging the deck chairs!
2009-09-14
15:50:12
Len: We had a CWPPRA demonstration project known as "Kasier Red Mud" that was proposed by EPA and eventually funded in 1995. Kaiser funded LSU to develop the demo project and to test the red muds suitability. Through the late Bob Jones, Terrebonne parish engineer, tests were also done adding sewer sludge to the red mud. The experiments showed that the red mud could support wetland plants and that spray disposal of redmud mixed with sewer sludge would be an effective way to move the sediment into the marshes.
However, DNR and one federal agency really went out of their way to stop the protect. They claimed that Cadmium would be a problem. In order to meet these agencies demands Kasier constructed a series of wetland ponds on their property to simiulate fresh, intermediate and salt marsh. They spent millions. Terrrebonne parish also put up significant funds.
The project eventaully died when the same two agencies would not allow the use of salt from a salt dome to be used to 'salt' fresh water in order to mimmic the salt content of the intermediate and salt marshes. They wanted INSTANT OCEAN which would have added millions to the project. The project just died and the result was that industry, that had been watching Kasier's attempts at helping with the land loss problem with some interst, left and said basically that you cannot work with these agencies and Kasier was foolish to try.
We in Louisiana have a real ability to shoot ourselves in our feet. This was one of my babies so if anyone wants anymore information, I belive I still have all my files.
2009-09-15
05:21:10
Ivor-
I was appalled how an innocuous demonstration project morphed into the most cockamamie, expensive and ridiculous project ever designed by a committee of Breaux Act bureaucrats. No serious coastal scientist opposed the project but passionate agency opponents used arguments that reminded me of the death panel arguments against health care reform. One DNR staffer took his opposition to a religious level; This civil engineer (with no biological background) spent his working hours lobbying the DNR secretary and assistant secretary (both attorneys) against the project and passing out bibles on weekends. He visited the Kaiser plant and took pictures of what he claimed were common egrets with brown patches on their mostly white backs feeding within the red mud storage area. He claimed that the brown spots were evidence of toxic effects. The birds were cattle egrets with normal tan spots.
This experience perfectly exposed the irrational underbelly of the Breaux Act process for selecting projects and blew a golden opportunity to partner with a cooperating industry in a precedent-setting effort to add serious heft to help save what the America's Wetland Foundation calls Louisiana's working coast.
The most laughable flaw in the "logic" of the opponents of testing red mud for possible beneficial uses (including forming the core of flood levees) is that the material remains stored within coastal impoundments surrounded by - you guessed it, a levee composed of red mud!
2009-09-14
15:31:36
I have no experise in the toxicity of these waste products, but I'm assuming Len proposes to use the material in the core of the levees to substitute for the clay that would otherwise be in there. The levee would still have a clay cap. Impermeability is the whole reason for clay levees. Presumably, relatively little water would percolate through the clay cap into the core, and thus little would leach out.
Given the massive environmental destruction we are causing by clay mining and transport, and the massive amount of habitat being buried under mounds of gypsum and red mud, I welcome a better use, and look forward to an honest assessment of the risks and benefits.
2009-09-14
12:14:07
Len:
I'm somewhat surprised at this posting.
EPA and LDEQ have been most concerned with gypsum mounds for years. In fact, you may recall some time back that Jim Bob Moffett labeled Louisiana a "banana republic" because he was told by State authorities to prevent gypsum leachate from migrating into adjacent water bodies such as the Mississippi River.
If used to build or augment levees, wouldn't the accumulation of large quantities of gypsum lead, in turn, to concentration of the gypsum's natural radioactivity and the likelihood of "hotspots", a concern which has arisen with the concentration of NORM in oilfield applications such as pipeyards?
Likewise, "red mud" is often associated with environmental concerns as well for different reasons, due to its high pH and thus its caustic characteristics. In other third world countries (besides Louisiana) such as Jamaica, Brazil, India, Guinea, etc., the waste is associated with pollution of groundwater, and killing plant and animal life on the surface. It can be treated, however, with large amounts of hydrochloric acid and then made into harmless bricks, but it is unclear whether such a process would be cost prohibitive for this application.
2009-09-14
10:52:59
The search for reasonable reuse applications for red mud and spent gypsum has been going on for 30 years--as substitute materials for landfill clay liners and road subgrade fill. In recent years Kelly Rusch has looked at spent gypsum to reuse in concrete for marine application. In the past the costs for material prep/handling have never made it competitive with virgin material. We're still a long way off from that.
Keep trying Len.
2009-09-14
11:26:01
Anonymous-
I'm very well aware of the long search for beneficial uses for red mud and waste gypsum. I still have scars from trying to promote objective red mud testing during the early 90's but the Louisiana DNR and USF&W service teamed up quash the discussion - on totally bogus grounds.
Nevertheless that was before coastal protection was added to coastal restoration. At that point levee clay and wetland sediments were perceived as competitive.
Incorporating these materials into levees would save native sediments for rebuilding wetlands. In addition, there would be absolutely no increase in environmental risk over the way they are currently stockpiled.
2009-09-14
10:13:35
Along the same line of thought. The limestone/flyash byproducts can utilize existing wet soils, with 15% limestone/flyash. This reduces the high cost of trucking in additional material. Once mixed with local sand or soil, it sets up like concrete, and is nearly impervious to water. I have recently used this method for a roadway on Elmer's Island, and was very impressed. This method was used at the Rockefeller WIldlife Refuge for roadways.
2009-09-14
10:59:12
Wayne-
I'm familiar with the use of flyash as a binder similar to cement. The Big Cajun coal-fired power plant in New Roads has a lot of it in a barge accessible site but I think they sell it for industrial use.
2009-09-14
09:45:30
Len,
I remember some red clay material being used for fill in the La Branch wetland area north of the interstate some years back. Do you know if this was material similar to your reference? If so, it might provide a good example.
2009-09-14
10:56:24
Ed-
Kaiser Aluminum used to discharge their red mud directly into the river until EPA forced them to quit, probably in the eighties. Thus you may be right that some was beneficially used locally before then.
2009-09-14
09:41:00
Like my father, the people in charge will find out after you are gone that you were indeed correct. That's after they have spent untold millions on other sources.
Too bad isn't it.
Charlie
2009-09-14
10:53:41
Charlie-
Yes it is too bad!