Brownfield remediation often involves the excavation and “disposal” of contaminated soil. Example, this brownfield cleanup in Ann Arbor, Michigan involves the removal of 22,000+ cubic yards of soil contaminated by years of coal gassification.
Question: where does that soil end up? For some of the chemicals in that soil, I’d be in trouble if I put those same chemicals in my trash. I assume they can’t dump it in the regular landfill then, so what do they do with such a huge volume of contaminated soil?
The article is centered around Silicon Valley brownfields and other places may be different depending on what is actually in the soil. In this case however, he says that they get shipped around the country to giant plants and then buried or burned at a high energy cost.
Wikipedia outlines other general mediation strategies, including in-situ methods that don’t involve moving stuff around the country, including recent research into bioremediation and mycoremediation (using fungi/mushrooms for toxic cleanup).
Depends what’s in the soil, and how high the concentration. There are different classes of landfills for different levels of waste.
Soil with a relatively low level of contamination may not be acceptable for a residential development, but will be just fine for use as “daily cover” at an ordinary municipal landfill. For somewhat more toxic soil, there are certain regional landfills that can handle it under more secure conditions.
For the worst of the worst, there are places like Kettleman Hills, where pretty much all the the most toxic waste generated in California is sent to be sequestered from any human contact or potential environmental release.
When this toxic waste is deposited in a “secure landfill”, it hasn’t really solved anything. It has just moved the problem from point “A” to point “B”.
I recall about thirty years ago observing a “secure landfill” in the Niagara Falls area. Here they were burying 45gallon drums of toxic waste. The drums were stacked so high, the landfill looked like an inverted ice cream cone.
Given that the life expectancy of a buried drum is around twenty years, I imagine all the contained waste has now leached out of the drums and is now working its way into the Niagara River.
Bottom line: “secure storage” is just a means of deferring the problem to the future. Out of sight, out of mind?
Buried drums would not cut it as a modern hazardous waste landfill. At a very minimum, you’ve got an impermeable layer beneath to prevent leakage and one on top to prevent infiltration of rainwater, plus regular groundwater sampling so if it manages to leak anyway, it’s detected and fixed.
The kind of buried-drum landfill you describe is what’s now known as a “Superfund site”.
But yeah, it doesn’t really go away. Kettleman is the sort of location that’s both conveniently located for transportation from around the state, but in a desolate spot where there’s nothing nearby to be impacted.
When you mention “impervious layer” and drums not cutting it in a modern hazardous waste site, the implication is that the material contained in the site is still hazardous.
In other words, the material buried is either untreated or has not been totally neutralized.
In my opinion, only material that has been treated and is inert with respect to the environment should be buried. The idea being that when the inevitable happens, and the containment is breached, the leachate will not damage the environment.
Is this the current practice?
Also, you mention “Superfund” sites. I assume that you mean that such a site would have had some kind of remedial action applied?
Would the site I saw in Niagara Falls have been excavated and all the wastes neutralized? Or would it just have been buried deeper?
Assuming treatment, given the hundreds if not thousands of drums that were buried there, how would you even start to treat these wastes?
One expensive option is incineration followed by vitrification. Properly done, incineration can have less air pollution than if you bury the stuff and let it fester for decades. Vitrification is when you take the supertoxic ashes and heat them until they turn to glass, usually in cubes. This is a much more stable form that is water proof (no leaching into the water table), more chemically resistant (less likely to react with other chemicals and create surprises), and more compact (You can dig up the soil, burn it, vitrify it, and put it back in the landfill with room left over).
Yes, but if point “A” is a brownfield industrial site that can be redeveloped for housing and point “B” is a secure landfill site way out in the boonies where nobody wants to build houses, then it really has solved something: freeing up useful land.
To add to this - the term brownfield was coined to contrast “green fields”, that is open land outside of urban areas that has never been developed and can be an easy and lucrative project for developers.
Incentives are offered to remediate and redevelop brownfields because it’s considered good public policy to reuse core urban property. It’s technically true that moving around contaminants doesn’t eliminate the problem of contaminants per se, but it’s a pretty myopic viewpoint.
That particular site was re-mediated in 2012. The soil from that site was taken to Veolia Arbor Hills Type 2 Sanitary Landfill in Northville, and was used for the daily (or nightly …) cover of the other trash… Or just generally chucked in.
Well the soil wasn’t going to be dripping or releasing petroleum products,oils,tars or anything , or have a dangerous dioxin level.
“Buried” in modern landfills does not mean “out of sight, out of mind.” Ongoing monitoring and maintenance is required into the indefinite future. You’re right that it’s not gone, just shoved out of the way. As others have noted, in some cases hazardous wastes can be destroyed by incineration or other means, but that’s not always practical or cost effective.
This may or may not be the site you saw, but the Niagara County Landfill was indeed a Superfund site. USEPA spent 20 years on cleaning it up, and continues to prepare 5-year reviews of site conditions.
I remember seeing a gas station that was going to be redeveloped. Apparently the soil was polluted and had to be cleaned. So a big piece of equipment made out of a semi-trailer was towed onto the site. I don’t know what process was used, but for a month or so dirt went onto a conveyor belt into one end and came out the other. It looked no different but was apparently considered clean since they put it back in the ground around the new fuel tanks for the new gas station. Here’s a list of soil remediation techniques.
Thanks for the responses posted; they have been informative.
The site I was referring to was not Love Canal, although Love Canal would be a perfect case of what I have in mind when I am referring to hazardous waste being buried, before inevitably coming back to haunt us.
The link provided by Two listing remedial activities in Niagara Falls is truly scary; but given the extensive chemical industry in the area, it is not surprising that there would be a huge amount of contamination in the area.
Who pays for the cleanup of these sites?
The Love Canal site was originally the property of Hooker Chemical, but was expropriated by the Niagara School district. They developed the site despite the deed of transfer from Hooker explicitly stated that the site contained hazardous waste.
Who ended up paying for that? Were any of the local government officials ever prosecuted for contributory negligence?