ABSTRACT
Various organizations, environmental industries, and regulatory agencies perform technical investigations and evaluations of the various aspects of remediation methods for petroleum hydrocarbons in soil, fate and behavior of petroleum hydrocarbons in soil, and economic analyses. Determining exposure pathways resulting from the performance of the remediation option chosen to mitigate a particular underground storage tanks (UST) leak or spill is as important as assessing the risk and evaluating the findings. Enough time has passed and enough soil pollution remediation has been practiced to indicate that remediation practices can be very time consuming and expensive and often yield less than satisfactory results. Ensuring profitability for venture capitalists to invest in innovative cleanup technology would mean that soil remediation would move forward much more quickly—to the advantage of the environment. The naturally occurring microorganisms in soil degrade contaminants to other forms in in situ biodegradation. The effectiveness of high-temperature incineration for the destruction of petroleum-laden soil is well documented.
