A Summary of the DOE / PERF Bioremediation Workshop

All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transcribed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America Bioremediation can be a cost-effective technology that is often used to treat oil spills in all types of environmental media including soils, groundwater , and surface water (both freshwater and marine). Bioremediation is also used to treat oily wastes. Once spilled, oil is subject to a wide range of physical, biological and chemical processes that serve to " weather " the oil, and attenuate it in the environment. One of these weathering processes , biodegradation, is unique because it is the primary process by which the oil is actually removed from the environment. Most of the other weathering processes transfer the oil from one medium to another (as in the case of volatilization where certain oil constituents evaporate into the air), or dilute it (such as from wave action, which may disperse oil throughout the water column in a marine environment). Due to the obvious benefit of actually removing the oil from the environment and the fact that it can be cost effective compared to other treatment technologies, biodegradation has been, and currently remains, the subject of considerable research. Crude oil and refined oil products are frequently stored and transported on or over land, and as a result, oil spills that impact soil and groundwater tend to be quite common although usually smaller in volume than marine or freshwater spills. Methodologies for bioremediation of terrestrial oil spills are well developed. Research on bioremediation in surface soils is currently focused on optimizing biodegradation rates, developing appropriate treatment goals, and site restoration following remediation. Current research related to hydrocarbon contaminated groundwater is primarily directed toward continuing to build a sound scientific basis for risk-based management strategies, methodologies for hydraulic control, and delivery of bioremediation amendments (oxygen, electron acceptors, and nutrients). Research on biodegradation in marine environments has studied the use of surfactants, fertilizers, and exogenous (meaning not naturally-occurring) microbes, and has found that only the use of fertilizers consistently optimized biodegradation rates. A comprehensive review of biodegrada-tion as applied to marine oil spills can be found in " Petroleum Spill Biore-mediation in Marine Environments " by Roger C. Prince. 1 Research on oil spills in …