Land remediation is the process of removing hazardous materials from contaminated land. Businesses and corporations are often held liable for land repair. The US government passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act in 1980 to manage and enforce cleaning tasks. Land reclamation can be done through excavation, dredging, stabilization, solidification, and bioremediation.
The news is often filled with stories of tankers spilling oil and manufacturing plants releasing chemicals into groundwater. Despite the talk about the issue, rarely is anyone transparent about what happens to contaminated land or responsible society. Land remediation is the process of removing potentially hazardous materials from contaminated land.
Many commercial and industrial facilities use chemicals that pose a threat to humans and the environment if mishandled. Businesses and corporations are often held liable by regional and national environmental protection agencies when lands related to their business ventures need to be repaired or repaired. While some cases are settled by companies reporting themselves and agreeing to pay fines or reclaim land, many are not. Legal battles that force companies to act responsibly and clean up contamination can last decades and cost large sums of money.
In the United States, the government passed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) in 1980. This bill had three main accomplishments: It gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to manage, enforce comply with and even carry out cleaning tasks; created a tax fund known as a superfund to clean up hazardous waste sites; and created potentially responsible parties (PRPs), which allowed companies to participate in site cleanup without admitting responsibility for the entire site. If the EPA undertakes the cleanup, it can force the company, or even multiple companies, to repay the government and continue the land reclamation.
Chemicals and heavy metals that are left behind or discharged from factories and manufacturing plants often linger in ecosystems and contaminate food and water resources. Land reclamation can be time-consuming for any site, not to mention money and legal complications. Heavy metals, such as lead, mercury and arsenic, and chemicals such as volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) from fuels and solvents and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from electronic equipment are particularly prevalent in post-industrial soils. Human exposure to contaminated soil, water, and food can cause everything from minor health problems to life-threatening diseases like cancer.
In the past, land reclamation was done exclusively through excavations. This literally meant digging up the polluted soil and stone and moving it to a landfill intended for hazardous materials. The earth was then replaced with clean soil.
When toxic contaminants sink to the bottom of water bodies, they are removed in a similar process called dredging. In this process, tankers remove the contaminated sediment and sludge in a machine, separate the chemicals and heavy metals from the water through filters and chemicals, and re-enter the clean water. The contaminated sediment is then transferred to a suitable landfill.
There are alternatives to less invasive excavations, such as stabilization, solidification and bioremediation. The goal with stabilization is not to remove toxic or hazardous materials, but to stabilize the molecules in a state where they are not harmful to humans or ecosystems. Complementary chemicals or compounds are added to contaminated soil to combine with toxins to produce stable, non-hazardous compounds. This can be done by spraying the additives onto the soil surface or by dispensing the additives in liquid or gaseous form through pipes driven deep into the soil.
Solidification is the process of adding chemical reagents that will combine with toxins in contaminated water and sludge to produce solid compounds that can be separated or filtered out of the water. This way the water is left in the natural ecosystem but the chemicals are removed. Bioremediation involves adding specific bacteria or plants that feed on the contaminated particles and create harmless by-products. These organisms must be chosen carefully as they often multiply greatly without natural predators.
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