How HYDROTEX Products Help With Contaminated Sediment
The containment of contaminated sediment ranks among the most pressing concerns in industrialized shoreline environments. For the integrity of aquatic ecosystems and for human health and safety alike, sealing off contamination—which very often stems from past industrial activities subject to laxxer environmental standards—must be a top priority.
Advanced HYDROTEX fabric-formed concrete provides a geotextile solution for sediment capping and remediation, offering a product that can be used as a standalone cover or in combination with other capping methods.
Contaminated Sediment Remediation With HYDROTEX Fabriform Concrete Mattresses
The aim of sediment capping is to stabilize contaminated sediment and to isolate it from both a physical and chemical standpoint, thereby minimizing exposure of aquatic ecosystems—including pathways directly affecting local human populations—to potentially harmful industrial chemicals and byproducts.
A wide variety of capping materials and designs may be employed. Sand, gravel, silt, and clay are commonly used alone or in combination, depending on whether a permeable, semi-permeable, or impermeable overlay is desired. Often, amendments of one kind or another, such as organophilic clays, activated carbon, biopolymers, and zero-valent iron, are added either to the contaminated sediment or to the overlying cap or within hybrid products geotextiles that entrap these amendments. These may be used not only to reinforce physical containment but also, for example, to sequester heavy metals, prevent certain contaminants from becoming bioavailable in the environment, or ward against chemical degradation that can lead to pollution.
Installations of sediment caps, amended or otherwise, often employ the use of geotextiles. These can not only boost the performance of an overlayer as a physical barrier, but also secure or sandwich other capping material (such as amendments) and protect them from the ravages of erosion and scour or physical damage from boats, tug wash or anchors. HYDROTEX fabric-formed concrete, which are cast in situ, offer huge advantages for geotextile sediment-remediation systems.
Using HYDROTEX Fabriforms in Sediment Capping & Erosion Protection
HYDROTEX fabric-formed concrete mattresses are ideal for containing contaminated sediment and protecting other capping layers and filtration media from damage and degradation. The ability to lay these fabriforms in place (above or below water) and then pump them with fine aggregate concrete, to manufacture them in varying thicknesses, and to select mostly impermeable or highly permeable HYDROTEX installations gives you a fully customizable solution.
From rivers, harbors and ports to wastewater facilities and landfills, HYDROTEX fabric-formed concrete helps enclose and isolate contaminated sediment while also shielding the sand, clay, organoclays or other capping layers. These fabriforms create an armor over sediment caps resilient in the face of surging currents, pounding breakers, battering debris, and ship anchors.
Whether used alone or in conjunction with other capping materials, HYDROTEX fabriforms can be your best friend when it comes to protecting the environment from contaminated sediment! And as a soft install of pumping in place, there is minimal disturbance to the underlying sediments.
HYDROTEX Solutions for Sediment Capping
A variety of HYDROTEX products are ideal for sediment-remediation projects. They include our Articulating Block Mats, which allows you to install a cable-reinforced concrete block mattress that can stand up to strong wave or current action while tightly hugging the subgrade. These solutions also allow vertical drainage in combination with the properties of the underlying sediment cap. Along with sediment capping, they provide long-lasting, low-maintenance embankment protection—another critical aim in many industrial-shoreline settings.
Another of our top sediment control products, HYDROTEX Uniform Section Concrete Linings can be efficiently employed to prevent the escape of chemicals and industrial waste in open channels and basins. Highly chemical-resistant, these Uniform Section Concrete Linings can also protect geosynthetic liners such as GCLs (geosynthetic clay liners) or RCM (reactive core mats) from a variety of damage, from mechanical impact and freeze-thaw to UV degradation.
Often it’s desirable to boost the ecological value of a sediment-capping system by incorporating living vegetation on top. Our HYDROTEX Enviromat Concrete Linings are ideal for this, manifesting as a fabriform mattress with both concrete-filled and unfilled sections that can be seeded or planted or naturally allowed to grow plantlife.
Part of the great appeal of HYDROTEX products are their equal application in above- and below-water settings. The incredible ease with which they can be installed and their ability to conform precisely to a wide variety of structures and subgrades—including unconventional footprints and hard-to-access areas—makes them the perfect choice for a wide variety of sediment-remediation efforts.
Contact Synthetex for More Information on How HYDROTEX Can Be Used for Erosion & Sediment Control
It’s imperative to select the right materials and design for any sediment-remediation effort based on the site environment and the nature of the contaminated sediment. The supreme customizability and wide-ranging product thickness of the in-situ fabric-formed concrete installations we offer here at Synthetex means there’s almost assuredly the perfect HYDROTEX solution for your needs.
Interested in how HYDROTEX can help with contaminated sediment remediation? Get in touch for a free consultation, project estimates, and other information by calling us at 1-800-253-0561 or 770-399-5051 or our online contact form.