Bioremediation Procedures of Crude Oil Impacted Soil - Essay Example

Some features of the spill location show the characteristics usually associated with a priority spill of toxic substance; a spill that seeps down through the subsurface strata and then comes into contact and interaction with the groundwater.  The entire description of the ecosystem and environment where the spill occurred is a rather complex question. Map inferences and a consultation of the USGS Ground Water Atlas infer that the contamination would, because of the largely rural character, spread more readily through the food chain and have a greater impact than when such a spill would occur in predominantly non-rural locations.

This is by reason of the greater saturation possible where a rural area presents less paved and therefore sealed off superficial surface runoff, situations.  First, the groundwater flow direction is determined by drilling two or more wells. A non-toxic stain is made to suggest the velocity of groundwater flow, and the testing reveals the contaminant character and concentration. This site today has well upwards of 75 wells that all have data that is constantly changing. Concentrations that are available for wells 604b (years: 1987, 90, 92, 93 and 95); 532c (1986, 87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 95), would be fairly good indicators of both groundwater flow direction and extent of contamination spread because they are separated by a reasonable distance and lie  in the line of predominant groundwater flow.

The contaminants recorded are: benzene, toluene; m, p-Xylene; o-Xylene; isopropylbenzene; and Dissolved oxygen, and are parameters which can suggest the effectiveness of the bioremediation. The idea is that aerobic rather than anaerobic processes are predominant. The rationale for this is that where the contaminant concentrations go to zero the Dissolved oxygen concentration increases.