A growing number of laboratory studies are showing that the toxicity of the soil extract increases following bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contaminated soil, even though the concentrations of many of the parent PAHs decrease following remediation. In addition, recent studies on the biodegradation of phenanthrene indicate that phenanthrene is not developmentally toxic, while its biotransformation products are. Given the chemical complexity of soil matrices, in addition to the multitude of possible PAH structures in the complex mixtures contaminating Superfund soils, advanced analytical and computational chemistry techniques are needed to identify possible biotransformation products and understand the increased toxicity observed post-bioremediation. Futhermore, a compilation of the published literature indicate that bioremediation of PAH contaminated soil often does not result in acceptable concentrations to allow for re-use of the bioremediated soils. Finally, the high molecular weight (&gt;302MW) PAHs, with the highest relative potency factors, are not rountinely measured in soils, biodegraded, or included in the risk assessments.

Is bioremediation of PAH contaminated soil worth it?

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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