ABSTRACT
The studied case described in this paper involves a historic industry contamination with very high contents of nitrate (around 1 g/l) through the entire depth of a chalky aquifer. The aquifer contamination was caused by a large infiltration throughout the subsoil from five old waste storage lagoons on a fertilizer plant site, located in the north of France. For a local remediation, an experimental pilot was implemented across the plume in order to induce a natural anaerobic biode-nitrification through ethanol injection. In half of the treated area, the chalk matrix was crushed to increase the infiltration network and the bio-assessibility. Presently, the biodenitrification yield can be assessed around 90 %, especially in the crushed chalk zone. A 3-D hydrochemical model, named FEFLOW©, was used to simulate the behavior of nitrate in groundwater downstream of the pollution source.
