Big Capability, Small Footprint

When Denny Hight started the Phoenix Group in 1996, the initial goal was to provide consultation work for the Oklahoma City area. But in its nearly 30 years of operation, the company has grown to bring more aspects of environmental work under its roof.

"We do environmental consultation, but also our own field work so we don't have to sub out as much as other folks do," said Garrett Hight, current vice president and son of the founder. "Whenever gas stations and truck stops have underground releases, we go in to do environmental investigations and remediation to clean it up."

A Rig that Changed the Workflow

In 2018, the Phoenix Group brought in a new piece of equipment that would change the way they conducted their work: a Geoprobe^® 6712DT.

"We were looking to do direct push, discreet sampling, and continuous sampling for our environmental work here," Garrett said. "We had a guy working for us at the time that had run a Geoprobe^® rig, and we looked into getting one. The 6712DT was one of the ones that became available."

Getting under the Canopy

Working with gas stations means limited clearance, and the 6712DT proved instrumental in getting into tight spaces

"For a lot of our sampling, we sample next to the product line trenches where the gasoline goes through to get to the gas dispensers. We have to drill and sample underneath that," Garrett said. "Any time we have to drill under a gas station canopy, a bigger rig can't do that. Our winch mast can, especially for direct push stuff. The tooling is so much easier to handle, and we can do it by hand."

Adding Versatility with a Rotary Head

Addition of a 2-speed rotary head provides even more capability on site.

"We use it to plug wells with solid flight augers or install monitoring wells with hollow stem augers under gas station canopies with low clearance or in areas around buildings where bigger rigs cannot access," Garrett said.