Smart'' pump and treat

Abstract

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is approaching the final phase of the Superfund decision-making process for site restoration and will soon initiate full scale cleanup. Despite some well-publicized failings of the pump and treat approach, we have concluded that intelligent application of this strategy if the best choice for ground water restoration at LLNL. Our proposed approach differs sufficiently from the pump and treat methods implemented at other sites that we call it smart'' pump and treat. Smart pump and treat consists of four distinct, but interrelated, elements: three preremediation strategies and one modification to pump and treat itself. Together, these techniques are an integrated program that utilizes an understanding of crucial aspects of contaminant flow and transport to speed up the remediation of contaminated aquifers. The four elements are: (1) a spatially detailed site characterization, linked with regional hydrogeologic models; (2) directed extraction, where the extraction and recharge locations are controlled by field-determined hydrogeologic parameters; (3) field-validated modeling that the matches the complexity of the collected data; and (4) adaptive pumping, whose pattern varies with time. Together, these techniques minimize the cost and the time to reach regulatory directed cleanup goals and maximize the rate of contaminant removal. 8 refs.