Abstract
Sustainable management practices can be applied to the remediation of contaminated land to maximise the economic, environmental and social benefits of the process. The Sustainable Remediation Forum UK (SuRF-UK) have developed a framework to support the implementation of sustainable practices within contaminated land management and decision making. This study applies the framework, including qualitative (Tier 1) and semi-quantitative (Tier 2) sustainability assessments, to a complex site where the principal contaminant source is unleaded gasoline, giving rise to a dissolved phase BTEX and MTBE plume. The pathway is groundwater migration through a chalk aquifer and the receptor is a water supply borehole. A hydraulic containment system (HCS) has been installed to manage the MTBE plume migration. The options considered to remediate the MTBE source include monitored natural attenuation (MNA), air sparging/soil vapour extraction (AS/SVE), pump and treat (PT) and electrokinetic-enhanced bioremediation (EK-BIO). A sustainability indictor set from the SuRF-UK framework, including priority indicator categories selected during a stakeholder engagement workshop, was used to frame the assessments. At Tier 1 the options are ranked based on qualitative supporting information, whereas in Tier 2 a multi-criteria analysis is applied. Furthermore, the multi-criteria analysis was refined for scenarios where photovoltaics (PVs) are included and amendments are excluded from the EK-BIO option. Overall, the analysis identified AS/SVE and EK-BIO as more sustainable remediation options at this site than either PT or MNA. The wider implications of this study include: (1) an appraisal of the management decision from each Tier of the assessment with the aim to highlight areas for time and cost savings for similar assessments in the future; (2) the observation that EK-BIO performed well against key indicator categories compared to the other intensive treatments; and (3) introducing methods to improve the sustainability of the EK-BIO treatment design (such as PVs) did not have a significant effect in this instance.
Highlights
The management of contaminated land is a global challenge
This study applies Stage B of the Sustainable Remediation Forum UK (SuRF-UK) sustainable remediation framework to inform a management decision for LNAPL and dissolved phase remediation on a complex petroleum fuelcontaminated site. Both a Tier 1 and Tier 2 sustainability assessment are performed using a sustainable indicator set with priority indicator categories selected through a stakeholder workshop
Any application of the electrokineticenhanced bioremediation (EK-BIO) option should be subject to pilot-scale testing to ensure assumptions made for the assessment are valid at the field-scale
Summary
Its restoration is often considered to provide net positive benefits, but if remediation practices are selected and implemented poorly more environmental impact can arise than is associated with the contamination. Integrating sustainability practices into contaminated land remediation provides an opportunity for social, environmental and economic benefits of the process to be considered and optimised. There are two ways in which sustainable remediation can be applied at contaminated sites (NICOLE, 2010): 1) at the management level, integrating sustainability assessments into the wider decision making process; and 2) at the site-specific level, by an assessment to compare options against certain sustainability indicators. SuRF-UK has produced a framework which provides a structure for implementing these two approaches within a contaminated site project.
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