In many cases of ground water pollution, in situ bioremediation may be the only cost-effective, time-efficient treatment technology. Successful treatment, however, may require the presence of metabolically capable bacteria in the polluted target zone. In the absence of a favorable ground water gradient, the problem becomes one of installing enough injection and recovery wells to draw nutrients or metabolically active bacteria through the contaminated zone. Electrokinetics has been proposed as an in situ treatment technology for drawing charged contaminants through soil and aquifer solids to a recovery well. Preliminary studies have shown that one can use this same technology directionally to transport microorganisms through model aquifer solids. Envirogen Inc. proposes to optimize and demonstrate this technology with bacteria capable of degrading trichloroethylene (TCE, vinyl chloride, dichloroethylene and other related contaminants from the surface of aquifer materials.
