A Rare Opportunity for Many to Catch a Total Solar Eclipse! We were pretty excited to learn that a total solar eclipse was scheduled to cross much of eastern Canada on April 8, 2024 and many of us made plans to take in this rare spectacle! (Some of us, and we’re sure even many of you, may have even missed work for part of the afternoon .) After all, the last total solar eclipse seen in Canada happened back on August 1, 2008 in parts of Nunavut. But this one was going to be moving across some of the most populated areas of Canada, allowing many more people to take in the sight without having ..read more

One of the many benefits of working for a smaller company is that your job description can change daily. One problem that arises with this fact is that your job description can change daily! Trying to explain to friends and family outside of the industry what it is exactly that you do can be a challenge when no one day looks the same and your company is constantly pushing the boundaries of the environmental remediation sector. Eric was hired by Vertex Environmental in April 2015 as a new grad looking to bolster his field experience in the environmental industry. Before being hired by Vertex ..read more

Announcing the world’s first injection of FLUORO-SORB® Adsorbent! FLUORO-SORB® Adsorbent (FLUORO-SORB®) is already considered the gold standard for treating PFAS-impacted sites via soil mixing and direct placement application approaches. There are now injectable versions of FLUORO-SORB®. Pilot-scale injection testing was completed last fall in Kentucky by AST Environmental, proving that FLUORO-SORB® could be mixed with potable water and injected as a particulate suspension using proprietary technology. Earlier this year, we announced a preferred installer agreement with CETCO®, the manufactu ..read more

In July 2012, Patrick embarked on his journey with Vertex Environmental as a Field Technician and Project Manager.  Working at a smaller, private company meant that he had to wear many different hats and play multiple roles.  His career quickly advanced and he soon progressed to serving as the main High-Resolution Site Characterization (HRSC) operator in Canada and eventually managing Vertex Environmental’s largest In-Situ Chemical Oxidation (ISCO) remedial injection program at the time. Patrick’s HRSC work took him to sites located from coast to coast across Canada, eventually cove ..read more

Do you have an irrational fear of remediation? Does it wake you up at night sweating and trembling? You’re probably not alone. Coming face to face with prospects of site disruption, high cost and uncertain outcomes can be frightening. But it doesn’t have to be. When done properly, remediation can be a treat – and you might even end up with a nice loot bag by the time the night is over! Case in point: the in-situ remediation of a horrendously impacted former dry cleaner site in the lower mainland area of BC. Storm Clouds Portending the Coming Battle of Good vs Evil   The battleground ..read more

Risk assessments (RAs) are an increasingly common approach towards assessing brownfields and other contaminated sites. However, in some cases RAs can identify that risk management measures (RMMs) are required to protect human health and the environment. This can comprise something as simple as a protective hard or soft cover over impacted soils, but in other cases restrictions on land use may be warranted or even regulated unless more sophisticated RMMs are implemented. RMMs may also be required from a legal liability perspective. Fortunately, today there are a variety of RMMs that can be imp ..read more

We are extremely pleased to announce that Farouk Abu-Hijleh has joined the Vertex Environmental team! Farouk comes to us with over eight years of experience in the environmental remediation and consulting sectors and a degree in Environmental Engineering from the University of Waterloo. He has managed a variety of projects relating to the remediation of contaminated sites across Canada involving in-situ soil and groundwater treatment (ISCO, ISCR, adsorption, bio, etc.), high resolution site characterization (HRSC), groundwater and soil vapour treatment systems (P&T, AS/SVE, DPE, MPE) and ..read more

By Bruce Tunnicliffe It was Friday July 11, 2003, my last day at the consulting firm where I started my environmental career. Over lunch, I remember walking to a government office in downtown Kitchener, Ontario, nervously lining up, and handing in paperwork to initiate a new corporation. And just like that Vertex Environmental Inc. was born     When you’re young and naïve, its easy to see what is possible, its easy to think big, its easy to think dreams can come true. And…sometimes they do! Thinking back over 20 years, I can’t be happier for the dream that started on that day twenty ..read more

A recent trend we’ve seen in the environmental remediation sector relates to a significant uptick in popularity of using Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRBs) as a Risk Management Measure (RMM) at impacted sites in Canada. But what happens when PRBs start to fail, or never work as intended from the start? Is there a way to identify why failure occurred and/or how to fix it? Better yet, is there a way to avoid failure in the first place? The answer to all these questions is: YES! The following case study attempts to identify common factors that can lead to the failure of an in-situ remediation pro ..read more

This year, SMART Remediation hosted its 39th and 40th events in Canada and was very happy to be back fully in-person after a couple of long, challenging years and it surely seemed that the attendees were looking forward to being back in-person as well!  So much so, that both events held in the GTA and Ottawa this year had record numbers of people turn out to take in the day! In fact, our enthusiastic MC, Bruce Tunnicliffe, couldn’t help but be proud of the record turnouts and shared some statistics of attendance over the years:     But then things quickly took a competitive tur ..read more