Illinois Town Contracts for Radium Removal

Water Remediation Technology LLC (WRT) has installed and put into operation two of the company’s Z-88® radium removal systems in the village of Antioch, IL.

Under a 20-year contract, WRT is responsible for the environmentally safe handling, removal, and shipping of the spent treatment media from the treatment site to a licensed disposal facility, ensuring that the treatment waste isn’t reintroduced into the local environment.

Prior to treatment, the radium concentration in the water from Antioch’s two wells averages 12.3 pCi/L, which is above the US Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant level for combined radium-226/228 of 5 pCi/L. One of Antioch’s WRT system processes 600gpm and the other 860gpm.  “Of all the systems we looked at, WRT made it the easiest to get the radium down to the levels we needed,” said Dave Hansen, Antioch’s public works operator. “As the town grows, the WRT system will give us more water treatment options.”

With these two systems, WRT now has a total of 18 treatment systems operating in Illinois under its Illinois radioactive materials license.

Colorado-based WRT currently has full-scale installations under way in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.  For more information, visit www.wrtnet.com.

AWWA Journal