PRELIMINARY MICROBIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISATION OF AN L-NAPL CONTAMINATED SITE

Key words: bioremediation, contaminated sites, site investigation, LNAPL, soil

This work is a first step of a research project on a heavily L-NAPL contami- nated site in Thuringia (Germany) funded by the European Commission in the framework of the "Environment and Climate" programme. The main purpose of the project is to implement in situ strategies for an effective remediation of the contaminated area. A thorough characterisation of soil has been performed in order to assess the basic physico-chemical properties, the amounts and distribu- tion of contaminants, the presence of endogenous biotic and abiotic degradative activities. An overview of site characteristics has been carried out in terms of standard soil parameters (e.g. pH, effective cation exchange capacity, Fe and Mn oxides, total Carbon, total Nitrogen). The mean results are summarised in Tab. 1. The three-dimensional contaminant distribution has been determined, as well. Pattern and concentration distribution of contaminants are very heteroge- neous. Indeed, strong variations in both horizontal and vertical distributions of n-alkanes, PAH, phenols, i.e. of the most abundant pollutants, have been ob- served.