In aquatic environments that are impacted by contaminated sediments, risk management strategies focus on interrupting potential exposure pathways by which contaminants might pose an ecological or human health risk. Pollutant binding to various solids in sediments reduces bioavailability and challenges the extrapolation of toxicity information to complex matrices. Emerging research by our group has shown that contaminant exposure pathways can be interrupted by enhancing the binding capacity of natural sediments using strong sorbents such as black carbons. In addition, we have shown that microbial degraders can be amended along with black carbons to enhance the rate of breakdown of the pollutants. These findings have led to a new approach for managing exposure of pollutants in-situ by adding tailored amendments to polluted sediments. In the last decade several pilot-scale demonstration studies have been conducted successfully in contaminated sediment sites in bays, estuaries, rivers, and harbors that have allowed technology scaleup and estimation of full-scale remedy costs. These in-situ technologies are proving to be effective in reducing pollutant exposure to human and ecosystem receptors, have minimal impact on the natural habitat, and significantly lower in cost compared to traditional remedial approaches. The technology has also been implemented in full-scale remediation projects and demonstrated to reduce the total cost of remediation of polluted sediment sites.

New advances reduces remediation costs for legacy pollutants in sediments

254th National Meeting (2017)

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