Assessment of Canadian Regulations and Remediation Methods for Diesel Oil Contaminated Soils

Diesel fuel released into the environment can contaminate ground water, degrade potable water supplies and cause the collapse of fisheries. They are toxic to both animals and humans and can affect the liver, lungs, kidneys, and nervous system leading to cancer as well as immunological and reproductive effects. The objectives of this study were to review current Canadian regulations pertaining to diesel fuel and to evaluate the current remediation methods using five criteria: efficiency, applicability, cost, time and cleanliness. PAHs are deemed toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act but no standards have been set for PAHs in diesel. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) has developed Canada-Wide Standards for Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Soil (CWS PHCS) while the Atlantic PIRI has implemented a Risk Based Corrective Action (RBCA) for the Atlantic region. The remediation methods included soil washing, landfilling, incineration, thermal desorption, radio frequency heating, chemical addition, landfarming, biopiling, composting, bioventing, liquid delivery and bioreactors. The bioreactors studied included: static bed, continuous mix, horizontal drum, fungal compost, slurry-phase, DITS, biofilters and packed bed bioreactors. The results showed that the biological methods were more effective than nonbiological ones and the bioreactors scored the highest among the biological methods. Eight criteria were then used for the evaluation of bioreactors: efficiency, time, cost, maintenance, simplicity, release of VOCs to the atmosphere, containment of contaminants and control of operating parameters The results showed that the continuous mix bioreactor was the most effective system.