Bad Alternatives To Bioremediation
Bio-augmentation or “Biostim” involves spreading a “Magic Microbe” or genetically engineered “Silver
Bullet” or “Phu-Phu”
dust and fertilizer on the land area or beach or
the spill and is supposed to stimulate the natural microbes to “live
long and prosper “(my apology to Mr. Spock!). Visualize a 1 or 2 micron
sized microbe eating through a fertilizer pellet. They come and spray
and spread and repeat the process multiple times over a long period of
time, hoping that the microbes will survive an alien environment long
enough to produce results. It takes a combination of many microbes to
produce the desired results in a short period of time, not just one or
two.
“Boom, suck and truck” is the
most commonly used method when an aquatic or marine hydrocarbon spill
occurs and is usually the first line of defense in saving such an
environment. The boom is used to keep the spill from spreading; then
tankers are brought in to suck up the oil and truck it to an oil/water
separator facility. This should be started within an hour after the
spill and continued as long as more oil than water is sucked into the
tankers.
In these circumstances wind and wave action make it
difficult to prevent the oil from being washed into coves, wetlands and
shore lines destroying the valuable ecotone that provides breeding
grounds for the native wildlife. It also destroys the food chain and
micro-ecosystems that support a healthy ecotone. The oil also moves
down into the water column and settles on the bottom…again, destroying
the food chain of microbes, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish and the
whole aquatic ecosystem. In 3 to 5 days, the lake coated with oil
virtually dies.
The economic consequences of using only boom, suck and truck
are loss of a critical natural resource and a viable water supply, loss
of wildlife (eg. fish, fowl) loss of recreational activities and
tourist dollars during the summer season, and loss of property value.
“Dredge, dig and
haul” is a very destructive method for
cleaning an oil spill or any other contaminant of concern (“COC”).
Whether on land or in a lake or pond situation, the land mass or shore
line (ecotone) would lose all of its top soil and a good bit of subsoil,
as would the lake bottom. It would also stir up contamination beneath
the spill and all of the microbial decomposers that survived and adapted
to prior contamination from other sources.
Dredge dig and haul, by its very nature, takes a
long time to do and would completely destroy the coves and wetland
ecosystems as well as surrounding land areas. The heavy equipment
required would tear up the entire beachfront or local environment … and
they NEVER get it all. It would take years for the land area or lake
and shore line to recover from this double whammy, impacting quality of
life and property values for the foreseeable future. In addition, this
method just ends up hauling and dumping onto another site that will have
to be remediated due to contamination of dumping toxic waste.
Surfactants are anti-bacterial chemicals, much like what is found in
ordinary laundry detergents and anti-bacterial soaps. These surfactants
break up big oil spills into smaller, oily globular pieces and kill off
any periphery microbes that had adapted to the environment, preventing
them from degrading the oil. The soap can also stay in the system and be
taken up into the water supply. Chemicals can not be cleaned up with
more chemicals without making the problem worse than it was before you
started.
Soil Vapor Extraction is a very
expensive process involving a great deal of machinery, materials and
manpower, and involves digging up the site to install pipes throughout
the contaminated layer and attaching extraction equipment to “pull” the
VOC vapors out of the site. This method is virtually useless where soil
is compacted.
Oil/water separators are
expensive collators that only skim the oil off the top of the water and
can not extract the new oils, additives and MTBE that sink and mix
through the entire water column causing damage to the ecosystem below
the surface.