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Contaminated Site Clean-up
Man’s
industrial, agricultural, recreational, domestic and waste disposal
activities
introduce "contaminants" into air, water and soil.
Naturally
occurring materials such as mineralised rocks and soils can also contribute
to site contamination.
According to the United States EPA, a
contaminant is any physical,
chemical, biological, or radiological substance or matter that has an
adverse effect on air, water, or soil.
A used and/or abandoned sites, following censure of activities or
abandonment often contain several contaminants that pose immediate hazards
or are capable of posing future hazards to human and ecological heath. The
contaminants (chemical substances) pose hazards because they exist at levels
above the background levels or they exceed certain levels, pre-determined to
be protective of human and ecological health.
For introductory
information on some of the common contaminants, please follow this link:
Common Contaminants
In cases of these exceedances of the
background concentrations or the pre-determined levels, site clean up is
required to reduce the contaminants to levels considered safe for human
health and the ecology. This is particularly so where the used land will be
reused for future projects or where there will be continuous access to the
site by humans and animals.
Site Clean up or
Remediation involves the removal, reduction, immobilization or
neutralization of contaminants on a contaminated site to minimize the
adverse effects of the contaminants on public health/safety and the effects
on the environment.
Remediation/Clean-up
procedure involves several stages involving:
-
Characterization (various phases) -
identification of the various contaminants at the site
-
Delineation: Defining the extents
(laterally and vertically) of the contaminations. Volume or other
quantitative measures would have to be determined as well.
-
Planning (Developing a Remedial Plan and
costing) - identifying the various options for clean up (remedial
technologies), choosing a method (s) of clean up appropriate, costing the
choosen approach(es)
-
Actual remediation - Implementation of
the plan using the choosen remedial technologies
Site cleanup technologies
reduce the contaminant levels or the levels of risks on used sites to levels
pre-specified, by regional standards or site specific studies, as protective
of humans and ecology.
Follow the links to the left for
introductory information on Environmental Site Clean up including sections
features on contaminated sites, common chemical contaminants, and the remediation technologies for reducing the common
contaminants.
Be on the lookout for a comprehensive
book to be titled "Contaminated Sites Clean
Up for Environmental Professionals"
Note: The information on this
site is free for your use. However, we would like you to refer to
EnvironBusiness
as the source of any information obtained from this site. We would
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