Water & Soil Remediation Case Study

Context:

Increased application of bioremediation to contaminated sites has created the need for accurate and rapid tests to assess the impact of bioremediation activities. Knowledge pertaining to the microbial community at a given site provides insight into the bioremediation potential and effects of bioremediation activities. Conventionally, the assessment of microbial communities has been done by culturing bacteria and fungi from the environmental medium in question. However, this approach is limited by our ability to culture all microorganisms (less than 10% of microorganisms in soil can be cultured) and by bias introduced through the culture medium used for enumeration.

Advances in microbial and molecular research have allowed for the development of tools enabling more thorough microbial community assessment at a site throughout the remediation process. A combination of conventional (culturing and enumeration) and molecular (fatty acid methyl ester ( FAME ) and nucleic acid) methods can provide a more thorough assessment of the various microbial communities. Shifts in the general microbial community or tracing of specific microbial characteristics (e.g., toluene degraders) can be achieved. These methods can be applied to any environmental medium and are rapid compared to conventional methods (2 days versus 2 weeks).

Goal:

Combine microbial, chemical, and physical characteristics at a bioremediation site and develop a model that is able to predict suitability of bioremediation and evaluate bioremediation effectiveness.

 Approach:

  •  Develop a series of microbiological tests that will evaluate the health and activity of the bacterial community.
•  Develop a model combining bacterial, chemical, and physical parameters.
•  Apply the model to a bioventing site.