Kent Armstrong

Kent Armstrong

BioStryke Remediation Products

     On January 25th our AP Environmental Science D Block was visited by local expert, Kent Armstrong. Kent has been in the field of Science for 35-40 years. Kent started his career at the young age of 19, working for the Audubon Society. Kent has also spent time being a "turd hurder" and establishing himself as a hard worker throughout his career. Throughout his long career in the field of Science he has found himself as the owner of BioStryke, a company that focuses its efforts on Bioremediation. When Kent started to work in the industry of his motto was "I'm going to clean up the world" Kent kept telling himself that and today he is putting those words into actions. When Kent visited our classroom we were all intrigued by his energy on the topic, always trying to keep us engaged through stories of his past, such as the moral conflicts he has had to deal with in the past. Kent spoke to us in a much less professional way then he is used to which makes it very hard to adapt to a new system but he did so in a way for all students to understand.

     Throughout the past couple decades Kent said there had been a massive amount of new chemicals introduced to the world, Kent said with time mother nature will figure out how to deal with all these chemicals but because they are so new and so harmful we have to figure out how to deal with them. The world is all about making money and the new chemicals were introduced without proper ways of managing them, which is why Kent and BioStryke have been trying to find a way to neutralize these chemicals. Kent also cleared a much need clarification between a brownfield and a superfund site. A superfund site has a federal mandate on it for cleanup, where a brownfield has not been assessed and has not been declared necessary for cleanup.

Contamination and the assessment

     BioStryke focuses on toxic waste clean up, the company locates sites which have been contaminated by Tetrachloroethene. This is usually caused by a leak in the company tank, whether it is above or underground. This is when Kent's team comes into play to assess the situation. The team assess the spill to determine how the soil has been infiltrated by the chemicals. There are three main steps into the bioremediation process; Evaluating the site, surveying the site, and remediation.Kent and his team use microbes to get rid of these chemicals by using microbes that are able to eat and breath the electron attached to Chlorine, when the bond is broken the chemicals have a harder time sticking together. The problem with this technique is that it requires time and a lot of companies do not have that type of time because they will run out of business before the process is completed. The alternative is the conventional method of 'cleaning' which just follows protocol of how to excavate the chemicals which just in turns releases them into the air. There is also the cost factor for a conventional cleanup, for every ton of soil taken out the cost equates to about one hundred dollars. There is also the drill that is needed to asses the damage and the cost quickly adds up. Kent has a site in Lebanon and over a 15 year period the lab can not longer detect a trace of chemicals in the ground and the owner only spent 100,000 dollars. For a conventional cleanup the cost quickly adds up to hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. 

Examples of contamination 

     Throughout the talk with Kent the future of our contaminations looked dim because of the little support behind the bioremediation efforts. The majority of our freshwater is held in unusable glaciers and the rest we are finding ways to contaminate it. The chemicals have been used irresponsibly, Kent told us of a company he had to go assess because they were being shut down and when they got to the room of the cafeteria the mercury was dripping from the ceiling and "That's why the soup taste so good." Kent then talked to us about the smallest contaminations can ruin a water supply. Kent told us not to quote him on this but I have no choice "Two drops of waste oil can contaminate a hundred thousand gallons of water." The mismanagement of chemicals only show how fast paced science in. When Kent was in school he used to play with Mercury, Lewis and Clark ate it during their expansion west, nowadays no one would dare come in contact with it.