TranslateEnvironmental Remediation Contractor vs. Reagent Supplier
One sells chemicals. The other designs your treatment, drills your injection points, and stands behind the results. Knowing the difference can make or break your remediation project.
Full-Service Contractor
Designs the treatment, provides the drilling equipment, manufactures the reagents, executes the field work, and monitors performance. One accountable party from start to finish.
Reagent Supplier
Sells treatment chemicals. Does not design the treatment, drill injection points, or implement field work. You β or your consultant β must coordinate every other aspect of the project.
Capability Comparison
| Capability | Full-Service Contractor | Reagent Supplier |
|---|---|---|
Site-Specific Design Turn-key proposal with reagent quantities, injection grid, and monitoring plan | ||
Drilling Equipment In-house Geoprobe, CME, AMS, Schramm rigs | ||
Injection Tooling Patented injection tooling, built and maintained in-house | ||
Field Personnel Full-time geologists, injection specialists, drill operators | ||
Reagent Delivery Manufactures and delivers patented reagents | ||
Performance Monitoring Post-injection monitoring and performance evaluation | ||
Single Point of Contact One accountable party from design to completion | ||
Treatment Guarantee Stands behind treatment performance |
The Hidden Risk of Hiring a Supplier-Only
When you buy reagents from a supplier and coordinate the rest yourself, you become the general contractor β bearing all the risk:
- Design risk: If the treatment fails, the supplier blames your design β no one is accountable
- Coordination risk: Driller, injector, and supplier must be scheduled separately β delays cascade
- Cost risk: Multiple vendor markups instead of one turn-key price
- Quality risk: No single party controls the full chain from reagent to injection to monitoring
- Performance risk: Supplier only guarantees reagent purity, not treatment outcomes
IET Is a Full-Service Contractor
From patented reagents to in-house drilling to performance monitoring β one team, one proposal, one accountable partner for your entire remediation project.
Request a Turn-Key ProposalFrequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a remediation contractor and a reagent supplier?
A reagent supplier sells treatment chemicals (persulfate, permanganate, iron, substrates) but does not design the treatment, drill the injection points, or implement the field work. A full-service remediation contractor like IET provides the complete package: site-specific design, drilling equipment, injection tooling, field personnel, reagent delivery, and performance monitoring. The contractor takes responsibility for treatment outcomes; the supplier only provides materials.
Why does it matter whether I hire a contractor or a supplier?
A reagent supplier cannot guarantee treatment performance because they do not control how the reagent is delivered. Injection grid design, depth targeting, flow rates, and field execution all determine whether treatment succeeds. A full-service contractor controls all these variables and can stand behind results. Hiring a supplier-only means you bear the risk of design and implementation failures.
Can a reagent supplier also do field work?
Some suppliers offer limited field services, but typically subcontract the drilling and injection work. This adds cost, scheduling risk, and quality control issues. IET is a true full-service contractor with in-house drilling rigs, injection tooling, and full-time field personnel β no subcontractors, no markups, no scheduling dependencies.
What does a turn-key remediation proposal include?
A turn-key proposal from IET includes: site-specific treatment design, reagent selection and quantity calculations, injection grid layout, drilling and injection methodology, field implementation schedule, performance monitoring plan, and a single fixed price. You get one point of contact and one accountable party for the entire project β from design through field completion.
Does IET also sell reagents directly?
IET manufactures and supplies its own patented reagents (activated persulfate, EZVI, Provect-IR) and can provide reagents to other contractors. However, IET's primary business is full-service, turn-key remediation β not chemical distribution. When you hire IET, you get both the reagent and the expertise to deploy it effectively.
