Groundwater Remediation in Contaminated Baltic Sea Coastal Area Near Ventspils City

Abstract

Different solutions for groundwater treatment often are needed because of complicated hydrogeological conditions and manifold contaminants demanding distinct approaches for remediation. Various technologies of treatment can be used such as pump-and-treat, reactive barriers, chemical injections and other. Two systems were proposed for treatment of different age and fraction oil product contamination in groundwater of the Baltic Sea coastal area north from Ventspils City, in the western part of Latvia. Remediation should be performed after careful analysis of results of groundwater level and LNAPL fluctuations in the zone of direct influence of the open sea. Series of experiments using vacuum pumping system were performed in addition to the monitoring as one of the method for estimation of the close-to-sea hydrogeological conditions. Groundwater contamination, LNAPL monitoring and intensive pumping of contaminated groundwater is in progress during season 2012. Contaminated groundwater flow behavior is under the strong influence of the sea, therefore common methodology by creating artificial groundwater surface depression by vacuum pumping can be questionable and not very effective. This study gives the opportunity to evaluate efficiency of vacuum pumping treatment system for two different types of oil contamination under the strong marine influence conditions.