New environmental engineering and technology firm opens in Butte
Staff bonds at the molecular level
New engineering firm opens shop in industrial park south of Butte
A new environmental engineering research and technology development firm opened its doors last week at 116 S. Parkmont Drive in the industrial park south of Butte. J3 Advanced Engineering Technologies, Inc. (J3) is a woman owned company operated by James Fallacaro, President of J3.
J3 has signed a lease for two facilities from Montana Tech. The buildings, which are known as the MT Tech Research Facility, consist of 5,600 square feet of newly renovated offices and research lab space with a second 3,200 square foot high-bay building for scale-up testing, advanced pilot projects, fabrications and enough space for anticipated incubator companies.
J3 currently has five full-time employees including, Dr. Martin Foote, Senior Scientist and Engineer, John Gilbert, Director of Operations, and Jody Bickford, Senior Process Engineer and Project Manager. J3 has also retained Neal Egan as a consultant for business development. Although J3 is a new firm, the employees have over 100 years of cumulative professional experience providing environmental solution services to clients in the United States and worldwide. J3 personnel have conducted treatability studies, scale-up testing, and full scale field technology implementations for the treatment and/or stabilization of numerous solid and liquid wastes.
Previous work experience for the engineers and scientists employed with J3 includes engineering, project management, construction, testing, development and implementation of environmental technologies for the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Army Corp of Engineers, Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service and many private companies including: Tetra Tech, Aspen Surgical, URS, UCOR, U. S. Filter, M 2 Polymer Technologies, Newmont Mining, Kinross Gold, Washington Group International, Conoco-Phillips, EG&G, Hecla Mining Company, and many others.
J3 personnel have also been appointed to handle the marketing of the Molecular Bonding System (MBS) due to their expertise at testing and applying the product. This technology is a patented heavy metal treatment agent developed by Solucorp Industries in the 1990s. MBS can effectively reduce the leachability of heavy metals in soils, sediments, sludges, process wastes, fly ash, lead paint chips and lead residues as well as in flue gas including scrubber and bag house applications. The product can also be used in combination with other treatment materials effectively. The MBS treatment process has been tested and approved by the EPA and has also been used at facilities throughout the United States and in Europe.
During a project (2005 -2006) in Ravena, Italy, 250,000 metric tons of soil contaminated with chromium, cadmium and mercury were remediated with MBS at a site that was historically used for manufacturing, natural gas processing and oil refining. The soil was left in place after treatment and the site was redeveloped. MBS was also used in the East Point Providence, Rhode Island remediation project. This project was one of the largest environmental cleanups in that state’s history. Ocean State Steel operated a steel mill for many decades along the Seekonk River in the city of East Providence. A total of twenty seven acres of land along the river, primarily contaminated with lead, were remediated and the city of East Point Providence was awarded the Brownfield’s Project of the Year in June 2005.
Furthermore, after successful studies proved that MBS could be combined with powdered activated carbon to reduce mercury emissions, a full scale implementation for the technology was conducted at a cement plant in 2012. This combination of products reduced mercury emissions by 97% without any plant modifications.
The MBS technology was also presented at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in September 2012 to a group including personnel from DOE, UCOR, B&W Y-12, and CDM-Smith. UCOR included the MBS information provided in a mercury treatability study and then requested quotes to treat mercury contaminated soils.
MBS was also tested in combination with a superabsorbent polymer. This testing proved that these two materials could be applied simultaneously to dewater and reduce leachable metal concentrations in wet soils and sediments. That body of work was presented at the Waste Management Conference in February, 2013.
