Catalina BioSolutions’ Bioremediation Products

Recently we’ve been turning down work!

Here’s the main reason why: A few months ago we bid to provide bioremediation products, our Biocritters and our “World’s Best Bioremediation Nutrient” for a PCE project in the east. We’re happy to provide free quotations and we do it all the time. The client seemed to be happy with the bid but wanted other bids as well. No problem. Then the client kept asking us for more and more details on how to do the job. We were happy to comply. He kept asking for more and more and finally wanted us to provide the details so he could use that as his Remedial Action Plan. I said no. We’re not geologists, hydrologists, engineers or any such thing. We are manufacturers and think we offer the best blends of microbes in the business.

I don’t know how he solved his problem eventually or whether he actually hired the appropriate technical staff to write his RAP. I just know that we do what we’re good at and we don’t do what we’re not trained — or licensed — to do. (As a side line, I later found out we were the low bidder. No regrets on this. Maybe we wouldn’t have won in any case!)

Lately, we’re frequently asked if our blends of bacteria will clean all sorts of things. The fact is that there so many chemicals and chemical combinations that often we don’t have a clue.

We suggest that they try a sample of our product and run their own test; or send me a sample of the contaminant; I will treat it, and then send the treated sample back so it can be analyzed by a laboratory. Then the client can compare a treated sample with the original and see if any degradation has occurred. We suggest waiting at least 30 days.

But, if they don’t want to do that, we’ll turn that business down as well.

The point of all of this is we’re not afraid to say no. We feel strongly that if it’s not in your best interest, or ours, we’ll take a pass. It’s your money and our reputation!

Now I feel better!

Jerry Coon

 

 

We pride ourselves on delivering our microbial products with enormous plate counts. All products out here on the market are not the same, so when making a purchasing decision, check out the plate counts and compare!

Here’s an example:

My friend, Dick Marshall, produces a product called Quellz (937.435.3126), which is like a steroid for microbes. He uses our microbes with his Quellz to clean swine manure lagoons. Smelly stuff!

We’re achieving great results in lowering bottom sludge levels, removing odor, and clarifying the water. Recently he called me and after a few battleship stories (he served on the Iowa in Korea) told me that he compared our product with a well-known bug manufacturer that I told him about. He found that to get the equivalent number of microbes that 20 pounds of our infamous Biocritters contain, he would need 1,400 pounds of their product! We use just 20 pounds of our carbon Biocritters to treat 3,000,000 gallons. It is slow release and has a plate count of over 600,000,000,000 CFUs.

We offer different blends for different contaminants but all have this same high plate count.

If you’re not sure if we can clean your problem, call us and we’ll prove it to you (and us!) because we don’t want to get into something that won’t work. We haven’t had a failure if you do what we tell you to do! (since 1990). And we want to keep that record intact.

We have recently developed an amazing nutrient for microbes. To boot, it is all-natural with no chemicals added. We are achieving tremendously high plate counts. Now, when looking through a microscope, you will be looking at “wall to wall” colonies. One client had a plate count analysis from his mixing tank before inoculation and the result came back “TNTC” meaning “too numerous to count”! (If you’ve never heard of this term before, it’s an actual technical term used in determining microbial plate count. I am not making this up.)

We’ve known for a long time – both through field tests and from our customers’ project data — that the nutrient portion of a bioremediation job is equally as important as the microbes themselves. So we’ve been continually developing, refining and testing various nutrients to help stimulate and multiply microbes. The augmented microbes that you inject will be stimulated to grow and wax strong, and the indigenous microbes, those already in the soil and water, will grow exponentially.

Essentially, the Biobooster puts the bugs in a feeding frenzy, and they then will devour all sorts of contaminant.

In fact, when sites take longer to close (delaying that all-important pay check!), most of the time the site doesn’t need more microbes; rather, it needs more nutrient. How do we know this? We observe samples under a microscope. And we do this all the time, we do it for free and we’re experienced at seeing what works and what doesn’t.

In fact, when we get samples from a project that is underway but not completed, and one with no visible microbial plate count, one of the things we do is add our Biobooster nutrient to the sample and voila, in about a day we have plate counts that are extraordinarily high, often TNTC.

As a microbial manufacturer, we know that there are two schools of thought regarding bioremediation. One is bio augmentation, where preselected microbes are grown off site, then added to the contamination. The other is stimulation, were microbes that exist on a given site (also known as indigenous microbes) are stimulated to do the cleanup that nature intended. Just now at a highly accelerated rate.

So, what we are saying is that no matter which school of thought you agree with, the use of our microbial nutrient (Biobooster) will help you reach closure levels faster, save you money, and get you paid quicker. Now there’s a refreshing thought!

The ingredients in our newest Biobooster are all natural and no chemicals have been added. There is even a natural surfactant in the mixture. It has a long-lasting effect on the bugs and not much is needed. For example, you just need to mix 4 cups with every 55 gallons of water, then apply. You can mix this with no bugs, your bugs, our bugs, domestic, foreign, even microbes from outer space. Well … maybe not outer space!

So the decision on which — or whose — bugs to buy, or no bugs to buy, becomes not as important as it used to be. Maybe, just maybe, you should just add the Biobooster as a prelimary step, treat and prepare the soil or water, and run some lab tests in 30 days. You might not even have to buy anything else! But if you do, you’ve already prepared the soil or water and the pretreatment will greatly reduce the dollars you spend on microbes. And one last thing, if you do buy bugs, and if you do buy our new Biobooster, you can reduce your bug purchases by 75%!

Eegads! I may have just put all of us bug manufacturers out of business!!

So what we have here is a way to save money by buying no bugs or 75% fewer bugs, reach closure faster, get paid quicker, maybe just maybe only use the indigenous microbes that are already on the site (those are free remember), please the regulators (no harsh chemicals), easy to use (just add to water), requires no storage requirements, requires no wait time, and has an unlimited shelf life. Now that’s really something!

Go ahead, make a call! Buy some of our Biobooster. We sell it in 20 pound quantities and the price depends on how much you order.
Jerry Coon
520.299.9808

P.S. As always, we will test your samples at no charge.

Nothing will happen in a bioremediation treatment unless you can get the microbes and nutrient in contact with the contaminant. Simple enough. You should strive for a moisture level of at least 20%. How you achieve that goal varies from engineer to engineer.

A good rule is to set up inoculation points at six-foot intervals in closely packed soil. So drill at 6-foot centers and inoculate with the mixture of microbes and nutrient, and you will get a good horizontal overlap. Frequently, the inoculant will overflow out of the adjacent hole, which is a good indication that there is excellent horizontal disbursal.

Here is a review of some basic soil moisture facts:

• A cubic yard of soil contains the equivalent of 201 gallons of water.
• 20% of that is slightly more than 40 gallons.
• So in perfectly dry soil, you would need 40 gallons to achieve a 20% moisture level.
• Most soil already contains a moisture level, so you may need less than 40 gallons and that can be easily calculated.

The selection of the drill type is important as well. While a GeoProbe is a useful and inexpensive piece of equipment, it is important to know that in closely packed soil, the drill can actually pack the soil around the bore hole even tighter, and can, in fact, pack the soil so tight that fluid can’t penetrate it. This makes it difficult to properly disburse the microbes, nutrient and the water. Your driller will help you with this.

 

Our Passive System

This simple, passive, gravity system works really well when used in conjunction with our Carbon Biocritters. In one of our popular products, we grow our microbes on and in small carbon pellets. The resultant plate counts are enormous. Since a tablespoon of carbon pellets contain the surface area of a football field, you can imagine the nooks and crannies available for the microbes to live and breed in.

When you are drilling your inoculation points (remember, 6 foot centers) simply line the holes with slotted PVC, capped at the bottom end with the slots placed in the contaminated zone, and leave the surface end either slightly recessed if you need to drive over the property (as in a gas station) or leave the stubs exposed. Either way, you can cover the top end with removable caps so you can continue to make inoculations during the life of the project.

Before insertion of the slotted PVC pipes, or right after insertion, add some of the dry Carbon Biocritters, about 6-8 inches from the bottom. This will contain billions and billions of microbes perfectly at home in the carbon. They will continue to grow and multiply when you add water and nutrient to each PVC tube. The carbon pellets do not dissolve and merely are the carriers for the billions of microbes. The microbes will last month after month and when you add more water and nutrient, there will be so many microbial colony-forming units that the excess will sheer off and make their way through the slots in the PVC and disburse into the site.

You can keep the site moist, well supplied with nutrient, and continually add more mixture of microbes and nutrient whenever you can. One man can keep a site active once every week or two. You can inject the solution of microbes under pressure for even better horizontal disbursement. But check with your regulators as they may object to “pushing the plume” outward.

We like this system and have used it successfully many, many times.

Please call me if you have any questions. I answer all calls personally. Jerry at 520.299.9808.

We’ve been using chemical oxidation for years on certain contaminants. Chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide, calcium peroxide … combinations of all sorts of things can work if the selection of chemicals is appropriate to the situation.

Hydrogen peroxide and Fenton’s Reagent can degrade certain contaminants but have a long-term negative effect on soil, rendering it impossible to polish up with microbes. We get asked frequently to finish a site previously treated with hydrogen peroxide, but, unfortunately, once the soil is ruined, it’s a hopeless cause.

We offer a unique oxidizer that completely dissipates in 40 hours, and we follow that up with a treatment utilizing our microbes. It is very effective. Call for a price quote.

Many companies utilize calcium peroxide as an oxygen source. It is a slow-release product that is advertised as “passive.” It is expensive, and it can work; it also cannot work. The big objection to it is that it creates a very high pH, around 12, which kills most bacteria, both indigenous and augmented. It is also very slow. And expensive.

We can discuss options for you.

 

Jerry Coon

520.299.9808

You may have heard these terms bandied around some, especially if you have a contaminated site and are thinking of bioremediation as a cheap and effective clean-up method.

Simply put, bioaugmentation means adding microbes that are grown off site, then added to the site. The nice thing about this approach is that you (we) can determine which microbial blends to use. For example, for petroleum spills, we like to use petroleum-degrading microbes; for manure lagoons, we use manure-degrading bacteria. Pretty simple!

Biostimulation utilizes existing bacteria (microbes) on the site, “indigenous bacteria,” if you will, and stimulating them with nutrients: the cheapest being cow manure, the best being our Biobooster. (It really is the best; in fact some customers that are stuck with another manufacturer’s product will use it to up the microbial plate count!)

 

Our system is to use both technologies. We like to add the known degrading bacteria, site specific, and at the same time, stimulate the existing bacteria; thus, generating enormous plate counts.

We can just offer to you our Biobooster if you — or the regulators — prefer biostimulation. Before you decide on that, though, you — or we — should determine if you have the proper indigenous microbes. That process takes about two weeks, and we will give you not only the total plate count but the percentage of the good degrading bacteria. There is a fee for that service, and you can call anytime to discuss.

Jerry Coon

520.299.9808

 

 

When you purchase our products, we give you detailed mixing instructions in writing, or you can call us anytime. A California regulator recently was wondering how we came up with our protocol, implying that we just made it up!

It took several years, and we are constantly refining the process. We would add different quantities of our dry Biocritters (bioremediation microbes) with different quantities of our “world’s best” nutrient, our Biobooster, and measured plate counts with different mixtures, and different time periods. We then select the best combination which yields the highest plate counts, and pass this on to you.

One of our clients had his mixing tank analyzed for plate counts using his lab. The result was TNTC, which means “too numerous to count”! We’re not surprised as we observe this all of the time, but we thought you would like to know! If you would like to see a copy of this report, send an e-mail and we’ll e-mail it back to you.

 

Jerry Coon
Catalina Biosolutions, LLC
biocritters@gmail.com
520.299.9808

We get frequent inquiries on using ORC and Solvay oxygen sources in conjunction with our bioremediation products. Such questions arise for both for insitu and exsitu applications using our Biocritters and our proprietory organic nutrient, Biobooster.

The thing about these products is that they both raise the initial pH to around 12 which is a bit high for the Biocritters, or for any microbes for that matter. And, frankly, they increase the cost of a job without an ROI that, in my opinion, merits the extra cost.

We haven’t used either ORC or Solvay for these reasons, though we do understand and appreciate the availability of a long-term oxygen source, particularly for sites that prohibit adding oxygen mechanically or by the preferred method of recirculation. (The EPA web site has an excellent recirculation system, by the way.)

In general, we don’t think we should be adding chemicals to clean up chemicals in mother earth! How’s that for a slogan?!

 

 

This has nothing to do with Bioremediation.

My dog Recon passed away suddenly. He was my best bud, at my side 24/7, and I miss him a lot. He loved to ride in the truck and nap on the couch, photos attached.

He was twice a stray. I found a home for him once but the family couldn’t take him. I still have trouble with this. I thought pets were part of the family, and our job as humans was to take care of them. Still do.

The second time I just brought him home and he fit right in. He knew that he was #2 behind Crema, our other dog, and patiently awaited his turn for his doses of lovin’ from all of us. When Crema died, he sat next to me while I buried him, and was sad as well.

Many of the folks that knew him have called and expressed their sympathy’s. I guess you all have best dogs, or cats, or other pets. Recon was that to me.

We used our bioremediation products on an unusual application: swine manure lagoons. Frankly, I didn’t know if it would work, but we gave it a try. Dick Marshall, a friend of mine, manufactures a terrific product called Quellz. It acts as a steroid for the microbes, so using both Biocritters and Quellz, he applied both to a 3,000,000-gallon swine manure pond.

The goals were to –

• clarify the water,
• reduce the horrendous odor (don’t go near a swine lagoon if you can help it!) and
• reduce the bottom sludge levels from 11 inches to 6 inches, in six months.

Ta-dah! In 30 days we reduced the sludge level to 4 inches. (Their measurements.)

How did we do it? Well, our Biocritters were merely broadcast as far out (read that as “tossed”) all around the circumference of the animal waste pond, and that was it. The Quellz microbial accelerant was poured in near the incoming material from the hogs.

Dick can be reached by email. Save yourself some money, and buy his product directly from him.

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Note: Quellz is an enzymatic product for odor control and sludge reduction in animal waste lagoons and aquatic species ponds. The enzymes work in a wide pH range (4-10), have good thermal stability and can be effective in either an anaerobic or aerobic modality, although they work best in an aerobic environment. (From National Hog Farmer magazine)