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Evaluation of Contaminated Sites
Sabah A .Habeeb
Introduction
Given the adhesion areas of the State Company
for Geological Survey and Mining (GEOSURV)
activities and soil and rocks on one hand, and
due to the presence of extensions that must be
addressed in studies by the company with regard
to the environmental and pollution happening in
the soil and its contents of surface and
underground water.. also referring to the
accumulated experience collected by the company
staff through participation of different aspects
and sizes in governmental projects which
required specialized studies, especially in the
fields of engineering geology , geochemistry and
geophysics for sites selection and contamination
assessment, the focus in this paper will be on
the areas of soil contamination resulted from
human activities and the possibility of the
company's participation in the implementation of
such studies. Hence, we find that it is
necessary to refer to some environmental studies
executed by GEOSURV, that is , pollution of
Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Abbassi Shrine
Yard, Hit city, evaluation of Industrial
pollution sites in Qaem Chemical complex, Qaqaa
Complex, Samarra Drugs Complex, Therthar
Residential Complex, Industrial Wastes Landfill
sites in Anbar Governorate, Electro thermal and
Electronuclear Power Plants projects.
Sources of pollution of the soil:-
Sources of pollution can be divided as:
-
Wide spacial sprawl
sources: represented by rain, snow,
pesticides or fertilizers and farming work
requirements.
-
Limited spacial
sprawl sources: includes activities such as
industrial, business dirt, soil civil works
(drilling and filing filling), accidents
during the transportation of contaminated
material and varied industrial waste.
Most often, the industrial pollution is resulted
from leakage incidents during loading and
unloading, explosions, wars or due to breaking
of pipelines transporting industrial fluids
(water, acids, …) sometimes be difficult to
detect pollution happened through short or long
periods as is the case concerning leakage of
pollutants from buried pipes & tanks.
If we are to address the Iraqi situation and
related examples of existing pollution cases, we
will see a great deal of these cases and
examples apply to all cases listed above, and
even worse than that we will see all the above
cases have occurred sometimes in one location
as is the case in the Al-Qaqaa Facility and the
main site of the Iraqi Atomic Energy in Baghdad,
a sub site Energy Agency in Mount Atshan in
Mosul, site of the existing chemical compound (Anbar
Governorate) and others.., thus we believe that
the pollution had spread to large parts of Iraq.
Setting
treatment targets:-
The polluted-site treatment is an expensive
process (up to tens of millions of dollars).
Therefore, the decision of treatment must be
carefully calculated. As for the causes of
clearing contaminated site are:
In any case... it is important to determine the
goals of treatment as long as the replacement of
all soil (for example) would be too costly at a
time will be the outcome of this process is only
moving the problem from its original place about
elsewhere, so long as the better qualities of
contaminated soil would require too expensive
amounts for its implementation.
Areas of study in which GEOSURV can
participate in:-
We find that GEOSURV (represented by experts,
equipment and laboratories) can enter in the
field of environmental studies of contaminated
sites through the key steps needed to take place
for the purpose of evaluating these sites. These
steps are:
-
Emergency
measurements (soil, surface and subsurface
water tests) in order to reduce the amount
of immediate pollution.
-
Implementation of
pollution analyses and studies: includes
geological, hydrological, hydrogeological
and geophysical studies, preparing a
presentation for the historical industrial
activities of the site, collection and
analyses of samples collected from different
depths.
-
Identify the
contaminated area, depth of contamination by
using geophysical methods & boring.
-
Assess the degree
of risk: including development of scenarios
for the exposure to pollution (through
monitoring the route of the polluter and
analyses of pollution and the expected
effect.
-
Defining evaluation
goals and sources of treatment based on
factors mentioned hereinbefore, in addition
to future uses of the site.
-
In case of
necessity, monitoring and direct personal
identification for case.
-
GESURV can provide
satellites and airborne data analysis for
the purpose of geological features
evaluation before contamination, or
detecting direct connection with the surface
water.
Conclusion:-
It is important to reach a full understanding
for the situation on the ground and is not an
easy task. To conduct studies and analyses of
pollution is considered a key step often leads
to reduce the cost of treatment through the
detailed definition and screening of
contaminated areas from clean ones within the
total area of the site, and through helping
decision makers to choose the least expensive
treatment technique.
If we take into account the irregular nature of
the soil and varied mineral components and
ground water movement, depth and variation of
soil permeability, in addition to relationship
with pollutants evolution (after obtaining the
impact of pollution and mixing with soil).. we
will find the extent of the difficulty of
obtaining three-dimensional map of the polluted
site, and this will requires a detailed
presentation of previous activities and types of
pollutants that may be present, in addition to
the collection and analyses of samples taken
from different depths blow surface.
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