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GROUND WATER ISSUE: DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR CONVENTIONAL PUMP-AND-TREAT SySTEMS
Citation:
Cohen, R. M., J. W. Mercer, AND R. M. Greenwald. GROUND WATER ISSUE: DESIGN GUIDELINES FOR CONVENTIONAL PUMP-AND-TREAT SySTEMS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/540/S-97/504 (NTIS 98-115398), 1997.
Impact/Purpose:
information
Description:
Containment and cleanup of contaminated ground water are among the primary objectives of the CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act; also known as Superfund) and RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) remediation programs. Ground-water contamination problems are pervasive in both programs; over 85 percent of CERCLA National Priority List sites and a substantial portion of RCRA facilities have some degree of ground-water contamination (U.S. EPA, 1993a). A common approach to deal with contaminated ground water is to extract the contaminated water and treat it at the surface prior to discharge or reinjection as illustrated in Figure 1. This is referred to as conventional pump-and-treat (P&T) remediation. Conventional pump-and-treat is an applicable component of many remedial systems. However, such a system will not be appropriate to achieve restoration in portions of many sites due to hydrogeologic and contaminant-related limitations such as those presented by significant accumulations of DNAPLs (denser-than-water nonaqueous phase liquids) trapped below the water table. Such limitations will directly impact the effectiveness of P&T at many sites and the selection of remedial actions. Detailed discussion of the contaminant transport and fate processes that limit the potential for subsurface restoration using P&T and their characterization is beyond the scope of this document.