Silver Eagle Refinery Case Study

North Salt Lake and West Bountiful are home to several large oil refineries. These large plants have several smoke stacks, open burning flares, and round storage tanks. Speeding by on the highway, people probably imagine that these industrial companies are shamelessly polluting our environment. To the contrary, Silver Eagle Refinery proactively worked with the South Davis Sewer District and WesTech Engineering, to find a treatment solution for the environmental pollutants that are generated at their facility.

During the production of gasoline products, oil refineries generate a waste stream that contains petroleum by-products such as BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, and Xylenes). These volatile, monoaromatic hydrocarbons can be toxic to receiving streams with different populations of organisms. Until recently, Silver Eagle had discharged these harmful compounds to the South Davis Sewer District North Plant. At this wastewater plant, a trickling filter treatment process had been degrading these compounds biologically. But high levels of BTEX can upset the biological process and cause problems for a wastewater treatment plant. Silver Eagle Refinery and the South Davis Sewer District wanted to explore different methods of treating the BTEX before the wastewater plant would receive it.

To prevent any upsets at the wastewater plant, the South Davis Sewer District needed to limit the Silver Eagle Refinery discharge of BTEX to 5 ppm. As the treatment plant had proved, specific organisms could be employed to biologically remove BTEX. With these tighter restrictions, this refinery started to evaluate a pre-treatment program for their waste. Silver Eagle joined with local process company, WesTech Engineering, to conduct a pilot study. The goal was to find an efficient biological system that would significantly reduce their BTEX discharge in order to meet the limits required by South Davis.