Natural Attenuation and Bioremediation

Katharine Riche

Soil Science

Raymond Mueller

December 7, 2010
 “The application of highly sensitive analytical techniques to environmental analysis has
provided society with disturbing information. The air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe
in, the soil in which our crops are grown, and the environments in which populations of animals
and plants grow are contaminated with a variety of synthetic chemicals. In agricultural areas
and adjacent ground and surface waters, some of these chemicals are pesticides or products
generated from pesticides. Many are industrial chemicals that have been deliberately or
inadvertently discharged into waters or onto soils following their intended use. Others are by-
products of manufacturing operations that do not utilize waste-treatment facilities or by-
products that were inadequately treated. Some are probably formed in nature from synthetic
compounds, and a few are generated by the reaction of natural organic materials with chlorine
used for the treatment of water for human consumption.”

- Biodegradation and Bioremediation, Martin Alexander, 1994

-Photograph from National Geographic: Canadian Oil Boom

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 It is easy for many people, especially in “developed” countries, to take for granted what

the soils of the Earth have to offer. Water is packaged in plastic bottles. A variety of fruit and

vegetables are easily accessible at supermarkets any time of the year. The main course of

tonight’s dinner is neatly wrapped in a sterile package, with little evidence as to ever being any

known life form. When buying cereal, bread, pasta, rice, pizza, potato chips, etc., it is easy to

forget that these products contain ingredients that are plant-derived. People “tend to lose sight of

the many ways in which they depend upon soils for their prosperity and survival” because

unfortunately, “as human societies become increasingly urbanized, fewer people have intimate

contact with the soil” (Brady and Weil, 2010). Soil, water, and air are interdependent systems

that are important to all life and must be balanced in order to sustain life. Luckily there are still

people who are concerned about the health of the Earth and “new understandings and new

technologies” are being put to the test to maintain this delicate balance. Among other global

problems, soil and groundwater contamination has become a dire threat to human life.

Contamination of soil and groundwater can be very expensive to remediate, or fix, using

“engineered cleanup systems” (National 2000) and therefore has led to the study of the effects

and benefits of natural attenuation. Depending on natural processes to dilute or breakdown

contaminants may be better for the environment than repeatedly harassing it with invasive

machinery. In addition, it is cheaper than using engineered cleanup systems.

Soil is an important medium for plant growth, nutrient and organic waste recycling, gas

exchange with the atmosphere, soil organism habitat, and engineering. Soil also has a great

influence on the Earth’s water supply. In order to improve water quality it is useful to realize

“that most of the water in our rivers, lakes, estuaries, and aquifers has either traveled through the

soil or flowed over its surface” (Brady and Weil, 2010). Wetlands, streamside forests, and

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forests all play a significant role in water purification and without them it would be extremely

expensive to clean up all the contaminants. As water moves through these ecosystems,

“pollutants such as metals, viruses, oils, excess nutrients, and sediment are processed and filtered

out” (Water). Soil acts as a natural filter, but unfortunately humans have altered the soil by

destroying many forests and wetlands to make room for urban development and agriculture.

Although there are natural impurities that can affect water, often the impurities “are the result of

human activity” (Ask). Human activities such as the altering of waterways, the introduction of

invasive species, and the dumping of toxic waste have negatively affected the soil and

consequently, water quality (Water). It is important to maintain soil health in order to keep a

balance between all of Earth’s processes. Soil “supplies a cleansing action to groundwater”

(Ask) by way of biological and/or mechanical processes. These processes, “unaided by

deliberate human intervention, [can] reduce the concentration, toxicity, or mobility of chemical

or radioactive contaminants” (Monitored). In many cases, though, human intervention is needed.

Corporations responsible for the source of contaminant must remove the source immediately,

especially if it is polluting a nearby town’s drinking water. Once the source is removed, utilizing

the filtering ability of soil may be an environmentally-friendly and inexpensive way to clean up

the rest of the contaminant compared to engineered methods.

When people think of soil they tend to only think about the solid portion. Although the

“soil’s solid framework” is significant, “the four major components of soil are air, water, mineral

matter, and organic matter” (Brady and Weil, 2010). These four components form a network

that influences the type of soil that will be found in a particular location. The type of soil

determines what kind of plants can grow and, accordingly, what kind of animals can thrive.

These interrelated systems, however, are not so simplistic. They all influence one another in an

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ongoing cycle that is also influenced by climate, parent material, time, topography, and human

activity. It is a delicate and specific balance that must be withheld in order for the Earth to

sustain life.

Soil texture “is determined by the percentage of sand, silt, and clay.” Sand, silt, and clay

are different categories based on the size of the particles in the soil. “Sand particles range in size

from 0.05-2.0 mm, silt ranges from 0.002-0.05 mm, and the clay fraction is made up of particles

less than 0.002mm” (Soil). The size, or diameter, of the mineral, or inorganic, particles

influences many soil properties including drainage, water holding capacity, aeration,

susceptibility to erosion, organic matter content, cation exchange capacity, and pH buffering

capacity. Between the particles is space known as pore space where “air and water circulate,

roots grow, and microscopic creatures live” (Brady and Weil, 2010). Pore space varies

depending on the size of the particles. “Silt and clayey soils generally have smaller pores, but

have many more pores than sandy soils. Because of the number of pores, when silty and clayey

soils are filled with water, these soils contain more total water than sandy soil with all its pores

filled” (Gardner, 1962). Pore space influences the way in which water travels through the soil.

The two major forces that move water through the pore space of soil are gravity and

adhesion. As water enters the soil it moves through the unsaturated zone, also known as the

vadose zone. Adhesion, the ability of water molecules to stick to other objects, and cohesion, the

ability of water molecules to stick together, are the two forces that act on water in the vadose

zone. Here, gravity only has a slight effect on the movement of water. As the water continues to

move down through the soil it reaches the saturated zone. “The upper surface of this zone of

saturation is known as the water table and the water within the saturated zone is termed

groundwater” (Brady and Weil, 2010). Gravity has a greater effect on saturated soils because the

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pores are larger. These two factors cause the water to move more rapidly. Groundwater moves

horizontally toward springs and streams and upward by capillary movement to replace water that

has been removed from the unsaturated zone by plants. This movement of water from the

surface and down through the soil is important because it:

not only replenishes the groundwater, it also dissolves and carries downward a variety

of inorganic and organic chemicals found in the soil or on the land surface. Chemicals

leached from the soil to the groundwater (and eventually to streams and rivers) in this

manner include elements weathered from minerals, natural organic compounds resulting

from the decay of plant residues, plant nutrients derived from natural and human sources,

and various synthetic chemicals applied intentionally or inadvertently to soils (Brady

and Weil, 2010).

Whether or not the chemicals are natural, if there is an excess of chemicals entering the ground,

it will negatively affect the groundwater and eventually nearby waterways. Although there are

regulations that exist to help protect groundwater, chemicals still enter the soil “intentionally or

inadvertently.” Therefore, it is necessary to utilize methods that aid in cleaning up the chemicals

before they contaminate large areas and become health hazards. The removal of contaminants

from soil and groundwater is known as remediation.

There are many methods used to clean up groundwater contamination. First, it is

important to know what kind of contaminants are leaking into the surrounding soil and the

source from which they are leaking. Information such as the “spatial extent,” physical and

chemical properties, concentration, and level of toxicity of the contaminants is useful when

trying to determine how and when the contaminants should be removed. Below are two

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diagrams that show how the densities of different contaminants affect the way in which the

contaminants move through the soil and into the groundwater (Stewart, 2008).

Light Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (LNAPL), such as gasoline, float on water.

Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (DNAPL), such as dry-cleaning solvents, sink in.

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Second, the source should be excavated, if practical. Once the source is removed, the

contaminated soil and groundwater must still be remediated (Stewart, 2008). Models are often

created to have an “idealized picture of the important features of the flow and transport processes

operating at a site” (National, 2000). The models change and usually improve with each stage of

the cleanup process because more information becomes available. “Benefits include the best

possible planning for sampling programs and analyses needed to decide whether natural

attenuation is effective at the site” (National, 2000). Common remediation methods include

pump-and-treat, hydraulic containment, soil vapor extraction, phytoremediation,

vermiremediation, and natural attenuation (Stewart, 2008). Once a method is chosen it is

important for the location to be properly monitored, “ensuring that there will be no adverse

impact on humans and the environment” (Mulligan and Yong, 2003).

Although there are many factors that a company responsible for cleaning up the

contaminants must keep in mind, cost seems to be the most determining. Engineered cleanup

systems are often expensive and therefore, natural attenuation and bioremediation methods are

becoming more common. These methods, as well as the previously mentioned engineered

methods, focus on the removal of contaminants from the soil without removing the soil itself.

This is known as in situ remediation, which uses “technical means to increase convective

transport in the mobile soil phases in order to flush contaminants out of the soil system” (Otten,

Alphenaar, Pijls, Spuij and De Wit, 1997). It may also help enhance biological degradation,

which is the degrading of contaminants by microorganisms. The pump-and-treat method uses

“strategically placed wells” (Stewart, 2008) to extract the water and treat it when it comes to the

surface. After the water is treated, it is then discharged into a nearby body of water. Hydraulic

containment is often used simultaneously with pump-and-treat because it helps “keep

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contaminants away from wells used for cities or farms.” Soil vapor extraction uses filters to

remove soil vapor from the vadose zone and pumps oxygen in to help “stimulate biological

degradation” (Otten, Alphenaar, Pijls, Spuij and De Wit, 1997). Natural attenuation and

bioremediation techniques are sometimes used in addition to engineered methods, but because of

the high cost, companies that are at fault for the contamination hope that natural attenuation and

bioremediation techniques will get the job done.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines natural attenuation as “the

biodegradation, dispersion, dilution, sorption, volatilization, and/or chemical and biochemical

stabilization of contaminants to effectively reduce contaminant toxicity, mobility, or volume to

levels that are protective of human health and the ecosystem” (Kaluarachchi, 2001). Natural

attenuation takes advantage of the soil’s natural ability to act as a filter. Biodegradation, or

microbial remediation, uses microorganisms that can thrive in “adverse conditions of high

acidity, alkalinity, toxicity and temperature” (Sinha, Valani, and Sinha, 2010). Bioremediation

techniques include phytoremediation and vermiremediation. Phytoremediation “uses plants to

remove pollutants from the soil or to render them harmless” and vermiremediation uses

earthworms, which “have been found to remove heavy metals [and] pesticides (Sinha, Valani,

and Sinha, 2010). “It is not clear how many of the millions of known organic molecules

synthesized in the laboratory or made industrially can be modified in these ways, but of the list

of chemicals presently regarded as pollutants and that are derived from the activities of human

society, many clearly can be modified and often are mineralized by actions of these natural

communities” (Alexander, 1994).

The source of pollution is not always easy to detect within the soil. Although there are

now regulations enforcing the cleanup of toxic sites, contaminants are often “out of sight, out of

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mind” until they reach local waterways. Therefore, it is important to develop ways to prevent

these problems from occurring and start adapting cultures to the environment, rather than joining

“in organized efforts to adapt [the] environment to [human] desires” (Brady and Weil, 2010). So

much of our livelihood depends on the soils of the Earth and “the degree to which we are

dependent on soils is likely to increase, not decrease, in the future.”

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 References

Alexander M. 1994. Biodegredation and bioremediation. New York: Academic Press.

Ask a scientist: soil as a filter. Retrieved December 2, 2010. http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/

askasci/env99/env166.htm.

Brady NC, Weil RR. 2010. Elements of the nature and properties of soils. New York: Prentice

Hall.

Gardner WH. 1962. How water moves in the soil. Washington: Washington State University.

Kaluarachchi JJ. 2001. Groundwater contamination by organic pollutants. Virginia: American

Society of Civil Engineers.

Monitored natural attenuation. Retrieved December 2, 2010. http://www.cpeo.org/techtree/

ttdescript/natatt.htm

Mulligan CN, Yong N. 2004. Natural attenuation of contaminated soils. Environmental

International 30: 587-601.

National Research Council’s Natural attenuation for groundwater remediation. 2000.

Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Otten A, Alphenaar A, Pijls C, Spuij F, De Wit H. 1997. In situ soil remediation. Boston: Kluwer

Academic Publishers.

Sinha RK, Valani D, Sinha S. 2010. Environmental biotechnologies for bioremediation of

contaminated lands and soil by microbes, plants and earthworms. New York: Nova Science

Publishers.

Soil Texture. Received December 3, 2010. http://www.water.rutgers.edu/Rain_Gardens/

factsheet29.pdf.

Stewart R. 2008. Groundwater remediation. Environmental Science in the 21st Century.

Retrieved December 3, 2010 from http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/environment

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 book/contents.html.

Water purification. Retrieved December 1, 2010. http://www.esa.org/ecoservices/comm/body.

comm.fact.waste.html.

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