Truslow Resource Consulting LLC is a member of the WaterVision LLC joint venture that also includes HydroAnalysis, Inc. of Acton, Massachusetts and CoastalVision of Newport, Rhode Island. WaterVision LLC holds a contract to carry out Clean Water Act projects at the request of US EPA Region 1. TruslowRC is managing the Cape Cod Permeable Reactive Barrier Site Characterization Project for Removal of Nitrate in Groundwater under the Region 1 contract.

A permeable reactive barrier (PRB) for nitrate removal is a method of in place groundwater treatment that requires little to no infrastructure. Groundwater that contains dissolved nitrate-nitrogen (nitrate-N) passes through a zone that has been enhanced with a food source (carbon) for anaerobic bacteria. These bacteria consume the carbon, and the dissolved nitrate-N is converted to nitrogen gas through bacterial respiration. The type of PRB being considered for the Cape Cod hydrogeologic settings uses an emulsified vegetable oil as a carbon source.

The immediate goal of the project was to characterize site hydrogeology and water quality at a number of sites on Cape Cod to support the design of pilot-scale PRBs for nitrate reduction in groundwater.The chosen candidate project sites for initial site characterization were in Orleans, Dennis, Barnstable, Mashpee, and Falmouth. This work included installation of water table wells and piezometer clusters to characterize groundwater flow direction, subsurface geology and hydrology, and water quality characteristics important to evaluating effective subsurface treatment using PRB methods. Additional analyses included hydraulic conductivity testing and analysis of stable nitrogen isotopes in groundwater. This phase of the project will be complete in early summer 2017 .