Manufactured Gas Plant Remediation ─ A Case Study

The assessment, remediation, and redevelopment of manufactured gas plant (MGP) sites pose a significant technical and financial challenge to successor property owners, including municipalities and other public entities undertaking brownfields revitalization, and to their consulting environmental engineers. Due to the toxicity of many coal tar constituents, sites contaminated as a result of gasworks operations pose a significant threat to public health. This book will discuss the history of the manufactured gas industry in Massachusetts (the largest in the US), as well as the toxicity of gasworks waste products, technical challenges in the cleanup process, and the process for site cleanups.

Dr. Allen Hatheway is a geological engineer operating exclusively in the field of remediation and redevelopment of former manufactured gas plants and other coal-tar sites. Educated at UCLA and the University of Arizona. He has served as adjunct faculty at the University of Southern California, and Northeastern University (Boston), was with prominent consulting engineering firms (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston, until 1981, when he began service as full Professor of Geological Engineering (University of Missouri) for 19 years. He has practiced for 54 years and holds American licensure as a Civil and Geological Engineer, Geologist, and Engineering Geologist. Allen has held command leadership in the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists (AEG) and the Engineering Geology Division of GSA and is a Fellow and Life Member of ASCE, a Fellow of the Geological Society (London) and is retired as Colonel of Engineers (United States Army).

Thomas B. Speight has practiced as an environmental consultant in Massachusetts and neighboring states for the past eleven years, with extensive experience in site assessment, remediation and redevelopment, including former manufacturing facilities and brownfields. Mr. Speight is a Certified Hazardous Materials Manager and also provides business, industrial, and institutional clients with consulting services for wastewater, air emissions, hazardous materials storage and waste management.