P37

UPSCALING OF FLOW AND TRANSPORT OF JET FUELS AND DEICING AGENTS IN NEAR SURFACE ENVIRONMENTS UNDER CONDITIONS OF BIOACTIVITY

Due to the slope of the ground, these chemicals migrate with the overland flow and produce small puddles on the ground surface. These puddles act as chemical application points to the subsurface system. Understanding the fate and transport of these chemicals on the ground surface as well as the shallow subsurface is of interest in predicting the possible environmental impact to both ground water and surface water.

The analysis of the long-term fate, the bioprocesses, and biointeraction of these chemicals in the near surface requires close investigation. Also, once these processes are understood and modeled at the smaller batch or point-scale, it is necessary to upscale them to the larger field scale. In this paper we present the preliminary results from research where we have investigated the effect of biofilm growth due to biodegradation of JP8 constituents on the hydraulic conductivity of the near-surface soils.

A set of column experiments were conducted to evaluate the dependence of hydraulic conductivity on the biofilm growth. These relationships are up-scaled to two-dimension by simulating the flow and bio-processes in a large soil tank.

Through these experiments we will demonstrate the dimensionality effects of up-scaling of water flow and associated chemical transport from one to two dimension. This information will be used in developing modeling tools that will be used in remediation design. In this preliminary research, we have focused on JP8 as the contaminant. The same methods will subsequently be extended to deicing agents.

Key words: near surface NAPL spills, jet fuels, deicers, biodegradation, surface flow, effective parameters, remediation design