The Midwest Chapter’s May meeting — held in-person in Chicago for the first time this year — drew 38 attendees from across Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The evening’s programming centered on three case studies of secondary containment projects, presented by the contractors who completed them.
Case Study 1: Agricultural Chemical Storage Facility, Central Illinois
A 120,000 sq ft agricultural chemical distribution facility needed to replace a 15-year-old HDPE liner that had developed sheet separation at a third of its seams. Midwest member contractor Jeff Harmon of Prairie Industrial Coatings described the decision to go with a full spray polyurea system over a new HDPE liner. “The seam problem was never going to go away with sheet systems,” Harmon explained. “Spray polyurea gave us a seamless solution that also handles the temperature cycling this facility sees between January and August in Illinois.” The project covered all floor areas and 4-foot berm risers, applied at 100 mils over a moisture-mitigating primer. Total project time: 6 days.
Case Study 2: Transformer Oil Containment, Ohio Electric Utility
An Ohio-based electric utility needed secondary containment for 12 high-voltage transformer pads at a substation undergoing expansion. The specification required dielectric isolation (to prevent current paths through the containment system) in addition to liquid containment — a requirement that polyurea meets naturally given its high electrical resistance. Member contractor Andrea Bishop of Ohio Valley Protective Coatings completed all 12 pads in three days, with the utility able to energize four pads on Day 4 of the project. “The rapid cure was absolutely critical here,” Bishop noted. “The utility could not leave half their substation offline.”
Case Study 3: Wastewater Treatment Plant, Minnesota
A secondary clarifier rehabilitation project at a mid-sized Minnesota wastewater plant required coating the interior of four concrete clarifier tanks — each 80 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep — with a polyurea system resistant to continuous water immersion and the microbial activity present in wastewater environments. Minnesota-based member contractor Dan Schroeder of Northern Shield Coatings detailed the surface preparation challenges: “Forty-year-old concrete has carbonation, surface contamination, and moisture that you have to address before you put a square inch of polyurea on it.” The project used a specialized epoxy primer formulated for wet concrete, followed by a 120-mil polyurea build, and has been in service for 18 months with zero issues.
Full project case study writeups are being compiled for the American Polyurea member newsletter. Related reading: Polyurea for Secondary Containment. The next Midwest Chapter meeting is June 19 in Chicago. Details on the Events page.
1 thought on “Midwest Chapter May 2026 Recap: Secondary Containment Case Studies from the Field”
Good writeup of the agricultural case study. One thing I would add: we pre-tested the HDPE liner seams with a spark tester before the proposal so we had hard evidence for the client of how many failures existed. Made the switch to polyurea a much easier conversation.