Historically, groundwater remediation strategies have relied heavily on chemical approaches to address contamination. By injecting an oxidant, the contaminant is broken down into its constituent parts via a molecule that drives a chemical reaction. This approach can be quite fast. However, concerns about unequal distribution, rebound contamination, and treatment with secondary impacts in the heterogeneous geology encountered at remediation sites suggest that a different approach might be warranted.

A contrasting option is presented by biology, and, in recent years, the environmental design community has started to pay attention. For Groundwater Remediation, contact https://soilfix.co.uk/services/groundwater-remediation

The central premise of biological remediation – the use of indigenous or injected microbial communities to degrade contaminants under subsurface conditions – has been in use for quite some time. For example, chlorinated solvents represent a very important contamination problem in Britain, among other places, and it is now recognised that certain bacteria can reductively dechlorinate these compounds, by doing this, converting them to an end product that is not hazardous. Enhanced bioremediation entails the injection of nutrients (in the form of electron donors) and electron acceptor-deficient bacterial populations to ‘boost’ the in situ biodegradation process already underway.

Compared with the traditional chemical approaches to subsurface remediation, the use of biologically based remediation strategies better aligns with the subsurface environment rather than being in conflict with it. In some cases, the organisms that are enlisted for active treatment during the degradation phase are, themselves, capable of continuing active degradation without further input from remediation professionals.