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A Proactive Approach Can Make Site Remediation Less Expensive

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Abstract

Without any incentive to clean up a contaminated site, remediation is often delayed until the site owner is compelled to act by regulatory agencies. In such a context, the selected technology is typically the one that will reach the remediation goals as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this criterion is often met by overly expensive technologies, resulting in high and sometimes unaffordable total remediation costs, leading to a remediation with a negative net benefit. This study examines the effects of time constraint and benefit value on the optimal remediation strategy for a diesel-contaminated site. This strategy is developed using the technico-economic model METEORS, which takes into account the technology’s effectiveness, the uncertainty of the level of contamination, and the possibility of reducing this uncertainty through either an additional characterization (before selecting and applying a technology) or the monitoring of the remediation technology (during its use). Results of simulations with both economic and temporal constraints support a proactive approach to site remediation.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge financial support of the partners of the NSERC Industrial Chair in Site Remediation and Management: Alcan, Bell Canada, Cambior, Canadian Pacific Railway, Centre d’Expertise en Analyse Environnementale du Québec (CEAEQ), City of Montreal, Total, Gaz de France/Électricité de France, Hydro-Québec, ministère de la Métropole (gouvernement du Québec), Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Petro-Canada, and Solvay. The first author would like to acknowledge the “Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche” for its financial participation. Special thanks to Professor Denis Marcotte from the École Polytechnique de Montréal for his help and suggestions in the geostatistics field. The paper benefited greatly from constructive comments of three reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Industrial Chair in Site Remediation and Management Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montréal, P.O. Box 6079, Station “Centre-Ville” Montreal, Quebec, H3C 3A7, Canada

    Gontran F. Bage & Réjean Samson

  2. Department of Applied Economics, École des Hautes Études Commerciales, 3000, Chemin de la Côte-Sainte-CatherineMontreal, Quebec, H3T 2A7, Canada

    Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné

Authors
  1. Gontran F. Bage
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  2. Réjean Samson
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  3. Bernard Sinclair-Desgagné
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Réjean Samson.

Appendices

Appendix A: Technology Designs

As specified in the main part of the paper, treatment costs depend on the design of the technology. This appendix briefly describes the design of in situ bioventing and biopile technologies.

In Situ Bioventing

The in situ bioventing system is a network of air extraction wells that provides the oxygen necessary for microorganisms to mineralize the contaminant, while simultaneously minimizing the volatilization of contaminant (Hoeppel and others 1991, Hinchee 1994). The space (distance) between each vertical extraction well is the basis of the in situ bioventing design. This distance is fixed as the smaller of the pneumatic radius of influence (Johnson and others 1990) (evaluated at 4.66 m for the study site) and the biological radius of influence (evaluated at 4.05 m for the study site) (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1995c). A total of 150 extraction wells, spaced at 5.7 m [1.41 times the radius of influence (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1995c)] are necessary for the treatment of the site. Each well requires an airflow of 0.3 cubic feet per minute (cfm), which is less than usual (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1995a). This value is constrained by the need to avoid upwelling of the shallow water table at this site. The total remediation duration for reaching the B criterion from the mean initial concentration is deterministically evaluated at 2.9 years, based on an in situ respiration rate of 7.2%/day (a rough average of values found in Hinchee and Ong (1992)). Actual duration may vary from this estimate, depending on the technology’s effectiveness and the true initial level of contamination.

Biopile

The biopile treatment system also provides oxygen to microorganisms, but the treatment is ex situ, meaning that the soil needs to be excavated (von Fahnestock and others 1998). The soil is heaped in a pile over a network of perforated pipes. The available space on the study site allows the simultaneous use of five biopiles, each one having a volume of 531 m3 [10(w) × 50(l) × 1.5(h) m] with a single network of three 2-inch perforated PVC pipes. To control contaminant volatilization, air extraction from the cell is preferred to injection. For an oxygen uptake rate of 88%/day (Reisinger and others 1996) and an oxygen utilization ratio of 66% for contaminants compared to organic matter (estimated from evaluations of contaminant reduction rates in Reisinger and others (1996)), a biodegradation rate of 41.6 mg diesel/kg day has been fixed. An oxygen concentration of 191.9 m3 oxygen/m3 soil is required for the mineralization of diesel in soil. Allowing a safety factor of 2 and with all five biopiles linked to the same aeration system (blower, humidification tower, and biofilter), the total airflow rate required is 324.2 m3 air/h (191 cfm), for a duration of 4.4 months. Because of low temperatures during the winter, 9 operational months can be obtained during 1 calendar year. Because the total volume of soil requires 19 biopiles, the total remediation duration is 17.6 operational months (2 calendar years). Given the same biodegradation rate (i.e., same design) and without increasing the number of biopiles on the site, the total remediation duration is only influenced by the initial mean concentration. For a mean concentration lower than 3600 mg/kg diesel, the total soil volume can be treated in less than a year.

Appendix B: Abbreviations

DM:

Decision maker

HS:

Heavily contaminated situation

MS:

Moderately contaminated situation

ORS:

Optimal remediation strategy

OV:

Option value

O&M:

Operation and Maintenance

RI:

Risk index

RS:

Remediation strategy (other that theoptimal one)

WS:

Weakly contaminated situation

Definitions

Site:

Situation Specific contamination level or range

Site:

State Probability distribution for a set of site situations

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Bage, G.F., Samson, R. & Sinclair-Desgagné, B. A Proactive Approach Can Make Site Remediation Less Expensive. Environmental Management 34, 449–460 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-002-0088-5

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