Theoretical considerations of the partition uptake of nonionic organic compounds by soil organic matter. The sorption of nonpolar organics by soils and sediments. Sorption dynamics of organic compounds in soils and sediments. Adsorption and reactions of selected organic molecules on clay mineral surfaces. Effect of sunlight on organic contaminants at the atmosphere-soil interface. Dehalogenation of pesticides by anaerobic microorganisms in soils and groundwater: a review. Volatilization of pesticides from soil. Chlorophenols in soils. Hydrolytic transformations of organic chemicals in the environment. Kinetics of biodegradation in soil. Overview of organic chemical environmental fate and transport modeling approaches. Organic chemical movement over and through soil. Environmental behavior of aquatic herbicides in sediments. Transport processes involving organic chemicals. Movement of volatile organic chemicals in soils. Nonequilibrium transport of organic contaminants in groundwater. Hydrologic processes affecting the movement of organic chemicals in soils. Movement of organic chemicals through landfills and hazardous waste disposal sites.

In the past decade, officials responsible for clean-up of contaminated groundwater have increasingly turned to natural attenuation-essentially allowing naturally occurring processes to reduce the toxic potential of contaminants-versus engineered solutions. This saves both money and headaches. To the people in surrounding communities, though, it can appear that clean-up officials are simply walking away from contaminated sites. When is natural attenuation the appropriate approach to a clean-up? This book presents the consensus of a diverse committee, informed by the views of researchers, regulators, and community activists. The committee reviews the likely effectiveness of natural attenuation with different classes of contaminants-and describes how to evaluate the "footprints" of natural attenuation at a site to determine whether natural processes will provide adequate clean-up. Included are recommendations for regulatory change. The committee emphasizes the importance of the public's belief and attitudes toward remediation and provides guidance on involving community stakeholders throughout the clean-up process. The book explores how contamination occurs, explaining concepts and terms, and includes case studies from the Hanford nuclear site, military bases, as well as other sites. It provides historical background and important data on clean-up processes and goes on to offer critical reviews of 14 published protocols for evaluating natural attenuation.

The complex topic of in-situ subsurface remediation technologies has been ad dressed at an international symposium at the Universitat Stuttgart on September 26 and 27, 1995, on the occasion of the inauguration of the research facility VEGAS (Versuchseinrichtung zur Grundwasser- und Altlastensanierung). The results are contained in this book with 22 contributions from leading experts in the field from Europe and North America. The book illustrates the role of large-scale experiments in groundwater and subsurface remediation research. The subtopics address the various links between conventional laboratory experiments, technology-scale experiments and field-site studies, showing the contribution of large-scale experiments to bridging the gap between small-scale investigations and large-scale field investigations (upscaling). The interdisciplinary nature of the problems requires a multidisciplinary approach. Therefore, the idea has been followed to bring together the various disciplines in volved in the different aspects and facets of subsurface flow, transport and trans as hydraulics and hydrology, physics, formation, involving such diverse disciplines chemistry, microbiology, geology, industrial, chemical and hydraulic engineering, mathematics and hydroinformatics. The individual contributions from these di versified fields address the subject from different angles in an attempt to form a coherent picture of the various aspects of the complex problems of subsurface remediation. The focus is on research approaches and strategies with respect to the development of new and improved technologies and to the role of large-scale experiments in research and application.