CAVM wrote: > > > > >Maaybe the most practical answer is to do both . . . > >dig up and throw away the soil that seems the most contaminated > >and dig in composted organic material to the whole general area. > > > > Bill > > If the soil is heavily contaminated with petroleum products you can not legally > just dig it up and throw it away. It has to go to a hazardous waste site where > they will either put it in a very expensive Haz dump, or a very expensive Haz > incinerator. > > The other option is to send it to a land farm where they will mix it with other > soil in the open, run a disk over it daily for about a month and sell it as > clean dirt. > > The petroleum contaminates either evaporate or are consumed by naturally > occuring microbes when it is exposed to air and sunlight. > > If it were mine, I would do the compost thing or simulate the land farm and > till it up every few days for a month or so. It will likely be fine after > either one.
My first idea was also to dig in a lot of compost (and to keep the soil
moist, those micro-organisms need water to live). But I am also
wondering if there would be plants that absorb some of the petroleum and
can later on be composted. Anyone ever heard of these? There might also
be specific bacteria available that thrive on petroleum. I think these
are uses for cleaning massive oilspills at sea.