When a major oil spill occurs, the environmental effects linger long after the story disappears from the daily news cycle. Crews are almost always shown rescuing local birds and other affected animals, but the most significant cleanup efforts today involve creatures that exist and work on a much smaller scale. Bioremediation companies use naturally occurring organisms to consume and destroy man-made pollutants.
These tiny creatures include yeasts, fungi, and bacteria in combination with their enzymes. They all play specific roles in filtering harmful substances, especially raw hydrocarbons. The processes they employ take time, and work most efficiently when the pollutants to be consumed are already part of their normal diet. To speed things up, artificial stimulation encourages them to work harder and longer.
As these organisms consume a pollutant they find appealing, they produce energy from the nutrients that allows them to multiply. When digested, contaminants are systematically removed from both the food chain and the soil. By increasing the oxygen level of contaminated regions where beneficial bacteria already live, metabolic rates are increased. Bio-augmentation further aids the process.
Often used in combination with aeration, augmentation basically means increasing the population of existing beneficial microbes by adding large quantities of artificially grown organisms of the same type. This helps nature take its course, but without wasting as much time. If these new additions are balanced properly, existing toxins will be broken down faster into sulfates, carbon dioxide, water, and other beneficial materials.
Biological remediation works both in water and on land. Before environmental regulations were tightened in the past century, hydrocarbon pollution under fuel storage units and on former military installations was simply covered over. They remained toxic for years, and sometimes polluted ground water while increasing local cancer rates. Traditional cleanup methods use disruptive earth-moving equipment to remove soil, which must then be safely transported and stored.
Surface soil disruption is eliminated when microbes are encouraged to do the most difficult work. Specific types of creatures prefer to eat a variety of toxic materials, but do not create hazardous by-products that must be contained afterward. Their biological processes help sustain other creatures in the ecosystem, allowing wildlife populations to return to normal levels. It is an ideal way to better clean up hard-to-reach locales.
Not all contaminants can be dealt with this simply. Some substances are too toxic for even the hardiest bacteria, and spills that soon become widespread may not be ideal for biological control methods. Any site undergoing this type of remediation process must be consistently monitored to make sure that the hazardous materials are actually disappearing. When there is an urgent time limit, surface soil relocation may still be necessary.
For the companies involved, final expenses for this type of remediation can be less than half, as well as reducing the cost of insuring workers. Without the need for a secure storage site, there are far fewer concerns about additional contamination or chemical evaporation. In many cases, careful monitoring and care not only encourages microorganisms to restore the habitat, but can accomplish much of that goal in a period of months.
These tiny creatures include yeasts, fungi, and bacteria in combination with their enzymes. They all play specific roles in filtering harmful substances, especially raw hydrocarbons. The processes they employ take time, and work most efficiently when the pollutants to be consumed are already part of their normal diet. To speed things up, artificial stimulation encourages them to work harder and longer.
As these organisms consume a pollutant they find appealing, they produce energy from the nutrients that allows them to multiply. When digested, contaminants are systematically removed from both the food chain and the soil. By increasing the oxygen level of contaminated regions where beneficial bacteria already live, metabolic rates are increased. Bio-augmentation further aids the process.
Often used in combination with aeration, augmentation basically means increasing the population of existing beneficial microbes by adding large quantities of artificially grown organisms of the same type. This helps nature take its course, but without wasting as much time. If these new additions are balanced properly, existing toxins will be broken down faster into sulfates, carbon dioxide, water, and other beneficial materials.
Biological remediation works both in water and on land. Before environmental regulations were tightened in the past century, hydrocarbon pollution under fuel storage units and on former military installations was simply covered over. They remained toxic for years, and sometimes polluted ground water while increasing local cancer rates. Traditional cleanup methods use disruptive earth-moving equipment to remove soil, which must then be safely transported and stored.
Surface soil disruption is eliminated when microbes are encouraged to do the most difficult work. Specific types of creatures prefer to eat a variety of toxic materials, but do not create hazardous by-products that must be contained afterward. Their biological processes help sustain other creatures in the ecosystem, allowing wildlife populations to return to normal levels. It is an ideal way to better clean up hard-to-reach locales.
Not all contaminants can be dealt with this simply. Some substances are too toxic for even the hardiest bacteria, and spills that soon become widespread may not be ideal for biological control methods. Any site undergoing this type of remediation process must be consistently monitored to make sure that the hazardous materials are actually disappearing. When there is an urgent time limit, surface soil relocation may still be necessary.
For the companies involved, final expenses for this type of remediation can be less than half, as well as reducing the cost of insuring workers. Without the need for a secure storage site, there are far fewer concerns about additional contamination or chemical evaporation. In many cases, careful monitoring and care not only encourages microorganisms to restore the habitat, but can accomplish much of that goal in a period of months.
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