APPLICATION OF CHEMICALLY ACCELERATED BIOTREATMENT TO REDUCE RISKIN OIL-IMPACTED SOILS
The drilling and operation of gas/petroleum exploratory wells and the operations of natural gas and petroleum production wells generate a number of waste materials that are usually stored and/or processed at the drilling/operations site. Contaminated soils result from drilling operations, production operations, and pipeline breaks or leaks where crude oil and petroleum products are released into the surrounding soil or sediments. In many cases, intrinsic biochemical remediation of these contaminated soils is either not effective or is too slow to be an acceptable approach. This project targeted petroleum-impacted soil and other wastes, such as soil contaminated by: accidental release of petroleum and natural gas-associated organic wastes from pipelines or during transport of crude oil or natural gas; production wastes (such as produced waters, and/or fuels or product gas). Our research evaluated the process designated Chemically-Accelerated Biotreatment (CAB) that can be applied to remediate contaminated matrices, either on-site or in situ. The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) had previously developed a form of CAB for the remediation of hydrocarbons and metals at Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) sites and this research project expanded its application into Exploration and Production (E&P) sites. The CAB treatment was developed in this project using risk-based endpoints, a.k.a. environmentally acceptable endpoints (EAE) as the treatment goal. This goal was evaluated, compared, and correlated to traditional analytical methods (Gas Chromatography (GC), High Precision Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), or Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (CGMS)). This project proved that CAB can be applied to remediate E&P contaminated soils to EAE, i.e. those concentrations of chemical contaminants in soil below which there is no adverse affect to human health or the environment. Conventional approaches to risk assessment to determine ''how clean is clean'' for soils undergoing remediation have been based on total contaminant concentrations in soil, as determined by laboratory extraction methods that use vigorous physical and chemical procedures. Numerous data collected from bioavailability studies in this study and others carried out by GTI and other organizations conducted on contaminated soils and sediments continue to show that not all contaminants are available to environmental receptors including man or ecologically forms. In short, there exist fractions of contaminants in soil that cannot be released from the soil matrix by normal means. These sequestered contaminant fractions should not be considered a risk to human health or the environment. This project focused on CAB technology to treat soil contaminants to these acceptable levels. Therefore, the primary objective of this project was to determine what these contaminant levels are and to reach or exceed cleanup standards using CAB. These determinations were demonstrated and verified using toxicity and chemical mobility tests. Based on GTI's experience with a form of CAB for the remediation of soils at Manufactured Gas Plant sites, use of the technology demonstrated in this project could save the oil and gas industry an estimated $200 million to $500 million over the next ten years. The merging of CAB with the use of EAE for calibration and evaluation of treatment effectiveness addressed the following research objectives: (1) Determination of the kinetics of contaminant desorption and bioavailability; (2) Further development of CAB technology for the treatment of hydrocarbon-contaminated soils; (3) Finalization of the methods, procedures and processes needed to apply CAB technology using EAE; and (4) Verification of the applicability of EAE for the remediation of contaminated soils.
- Research Organization:
- Gas Technology Institute (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC26-99BC15223
- OSTI ID:
- 834577
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 7 Jan 2003
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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APPLICATION OF CHEMICALLY ACCELERATED BIOTREATMENT TO REDUCE RISK IN OIL-IMPACTED SOILS
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