Natural Attenuation of Volatile Organic Compounds – AFeasible Environmental Remediation Strategy

摘要

Spills of volatile organic compounds have a high rate of incidence in anthropic pollution.Recent scientific investigations and well documented case studies demonstrated that, givenappropriate environmental conditions, the natural degradation itself can act as a viableenvironmental cleanupmechanism. Before proceeding to more elaborate and expensiveremedial activities, it is useful to assess the natural capacity of the environment to favor theattenuation of the spilled chemical compounds in groundwater. The present paper describesthe case study of a landfill at a site where, among a variety of volatile organic compounds,monoaromatic compounds and chlorinated solvents are leaching from the landfill into thegroundwater. The site was considered for a natural attenuation study based on the welldocumented geology, extensive groundwater sampling, and comprehensive field datasupporting the presence of biodegradation activity in the aquifer. The first aim of the currentresearch was to assess the efficacy of naturally occurring biological, physical, and chemicalprocesses of attenuation of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes (BTEX), and chlorinatedsolvents in the groundwater. Based on these findings, further analytical modeling wasperformed to simulate the natural attenuation of the chemical compounds released from thelandfill. The analytical models predicted the leachate concentrations in the shallow aquifer atthe receptor wells, given transport and fate of the chemical compounds along the flow path.