Land treatment alternatives for bioremediating wood preserving wastes

ABSTRACT A combination of nutrient and fungi addition has been applied to the treatment of a variety of soil pollutants in various laboratory studies, and a shift from laboratory bench-scale evaluations to field full-scale demonstrations is being pursued. However, before designing and instituting full-scale demonstrations, site-specific pilot-scale treatability studies are essential for evaluating the technology. An integrated, tiered treatability study at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Test and Evaluation Facility in Cincinnati, OH, was conducted on a soil contaminated with polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The treatability study was used to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrient enhancement with chicken manure and selected strains of white rot fungi for bioremediating PAH-contaminated soil. This paper discusses the experimental design and pilot-scale treatability study results.