How Long Does It Take To Remediate Soil?
When soil becomes contaminated and needs to be removed or replaced this is called Soil Remediation. This usually occurs when toxins become mixed with the soil's natural compounds. This usually originates from chemicals and hazardous materials such as pesticides or heavy metals, but there are many other places contaminated can come from.
1. Livestock Manure
2. Farming Chemicals
3. Failure of a Septic System
4. Incorrect Waste Disposal
5. Underground Oil Tanks Fail
6. Industrial Activities
When toxins present in soil it’s important to take the appropriate action to eliminate soil remediation so your land can be restored back to a healthy safe environment. There are a few ways to tackle soil remediation such as bioremediation, soil washing and thermal desorption. How effective the method you choose is all depends on the type of contamination and how bad the soil is damaged.
In some cases the chemicals and soils can be separated by using these techniques but in extreme cases it will have to be removed and replaced. There is no timeframe on how long it takes to fix contaminated areas. It could be one day, it could be one month, it all depends on the size of the contaminated area, the depth of the contaminated area and the contamination below the water table.
BioRemediation
Bioremediation is basically using microbes to simulate the growth of other microbes, this can be used against oil as a food and energy source. Microbes release water CO2 and other non harmful amino acids, this allows the contaminants to be broken down into smaller pieces allowing the microbes to eliminate (consume) the contaminants. To use this method the environmental conditions must be ideal as it consists of balance temperature, surface PH and available moisture. With the right food supply microbes can reproduce and aid in the removal of any unwanted contamination, the cycle keeps repeating itself until the source is extinct.
Soil Washing
This method consists of washing down contaminated areas with a chemical additive, the soils must then be scrubbed and separated. Once the contaminated and clean soils are separated they will undergo a water wash. Once this is completed contaminate soil and wash water can be disposed of, it’s completely fine to reuse washed soil as a backfill if the process has been successful.
Main Steps of Soil Washing
1. Pre Treatment
2. Separation
3. Coarse-grained Treatment
4. Fine-grained Treatment
5. Process Water Treatment
6. Residual Management
Soil washing is a really time efficient method and usually has very high success rates.
Thermal Desorption
This method is often used to remove organic contaminants. This is achieved by heating the soil with a machine called a thermal desorber and it works by evaporating contaminants. The contaminants will always be evaporated separately from the soil. This process may take a little longer but that all depends on a few things:
1. How large or deep the contaminated area is.
2. The desorber is off site
3. If there’s a lot of debris to move
4. The desorber is small
5. The contamination levels are high
6. The soil contains dust, clay or organic materials.