Laguny OSTRAMO |
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Location: The Moravian-Silesian Region, Ostrava area Brief historyThe present day waste dump of DIAMO, state enterprise in Ostrava, known as the OSTRAMO lagoons, resulted from the dumping of waste from refinery operations begun towards the end of the 19th century. In 1965 it started to be used as a dump for waste from the recycling of lubricants at OSTRAMO, g.c. Ostrava. From the end of the 1970s, the lagoons had been under consideration for closure due to the harmful outflow of dangerous substances and their negative effects on the environment. In 1992 there was a change in ownership and the company became OSTRAMO-Vlček & co. Ltd., which ceased operations in 1996. The extent of the site rehabilitation needed exceeded the capabilities of this private company and by government decree #626/1996 this ecological burden was taken over by the state. The responsibility, preparation and administration of this site’s rehabilitation were granted to DIAMO, s.e. in 1996. Description of the situation at the waste dumpThe dump consists of three lagoons (labeled R1 to R3) separated by barriers made of earthen levees rising approximately 5 meters above the surrounding terrain, and another lagoon (labeled R0), probably established at the start of the 20th century, in the excavation of a former brick-making facility. The existence of this latter lagoon wasn’t discovered until 1999 during a risk analysis study. The lagoons were situated at a valley level upon silt flood residue, without bottom insulation or a drainage system. Between 1972 and 1992, some insulation, in the form of an underground retainer wall, was done. In 1994, a water treatment facility was created to pump out and treat waste water from between the retainer walls and with the necessary capability for pumping out liquid crude oil waste materials from the groundwater level outside the retainer walls, known as maintenance pumping. Since 2003, preventative “Emergency Rehabilitation Measures” have been taken to stop the spread of crude oil waste contamination outside the retainer walls, including a drainage system and a pumping station for the decontamination of groundwater as well as a monitoring database taken from hydro geologic core samples at the discharge points of the site’s groundwater. Type of industrial activityRefinery plant activities – at the outset, refining distillates from another refinery and separation of gasoline and heating oil from crude oil, the manufacture of paraffin and lubricant, and, from 1981, the recycling of used lubricant oil: the resulting waste being systematically dumped into open reservoirs, sludge lagoons with peripheral barriers made of loose earth. Present-day conditionsThe waste dumps (four lagoons) were filled with oil refinery waste and rubble from former buildings: The R0 lagoon contents now being completely removed and its surface recultivated, the R1 lagoon’s rubble now partially removed, and the R2 and R3 lagoons remain as open surfaces of liquid waste. There is an operating waste water treatment facility and the “Emergency Rehabilitation Measures’’ facility in place to pump out contaminated groundwater and crude oil waste material. The preparation stage for the implementation of remediation (detailed risk analysis, rehabilitation viability study based on ongoing research of the dump) is now finished. The Environmental Problem and its SolutionWaste WaterRainwater pumped out of the lagoons enclosed by underground retaining walls (waste water) and the decontaminated water from preventative pumping. Rainwater pumped out at the “Emergency Rehabilitation Measures” facility as a preventative measure is poured back into the groundwater after decontamination. Treated waste water is subsequently poured into the city’s sewage system and later cleaned again at the central water treatment plant of Ostrava – Přívoz. Tailings Impoundment - LagoonsThe project, “Rehabilitation Measures – Ostramo Lagoons” deals with the remediation of ecological burdens in the following ways:
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