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Soil Separation Processes Ex-situ soil separation processes (often referred to as "soil washing"), mostly based on mineral processing techniques, are widely used in Northern Europe and America for the treatment of contaminated soil. Soil washing is a water-based process for scrubbing soils ex-situ to remove contaminants. The process removes contaminants from soils in one of the following two ways: * By dissolving or suspending them in the wash solution (which can be sustained by chemical manipulation of pH for a while); or * By concentrating them into a smaller volume of soil through particle size separation, gravity separation, and attrition scrubbing (similar to those techniques used in sand and gravel operations). Soil washing systems incorporating most of the removal techniques offer the greatest promise for application to soils contaminated with a wide variety of heavy metals, radionuclides, and organic contaminants. Commercialization of the process, however, is ...

A Continuum Comprising WPS Technologies A consortium comprising WFS Technologies, Swansea Metropolitan University, and Valeport Ltd has delivered the world's first ad hoc distributed network of seabed sensors for measuring the effects of coastal erosion. Sensor data regarding the movement of seabed sediment is communicated in real-time using WFS wireless through-water radio modems, initially to a surface buoy and then via a GSM link to a server for display over the internet. Radio provides reliable wireless communications in complex subsea environments such as shallow water and in the surf zone, making it ideally suited to coastal erosion monitoring applications. More than half of the world's population lives within 60km of a coastline zone. As changing global climate and rising sea levels speed up coastal erosion, researchers need to monitor what is happening beneath the surface of the sea. Understanding coastal erosion has typically been done by observation and measurement of...

Atmospherically Deposited Mercury Researchers recently received federal funding to continue a study aimed at exploring high levels of mercury found in fish at Vallecito Reservoir, which a researcher at the University of Colorado thinks might be the result of the 2002 Missionary Ridge Fire. The San Juan Generating Station in Waterflow and the Four Corners Power Plant in Fruitland are believed to be the primary sources of atmospherically deposited mercury in La Plata and Montezuma counties. CU's lead researcher Joseph Ryan thinks that a large wildfire could volatilize latent mercury that stuck to the top layer of soil. The Missionary Ridge Fire burned more than 70,000 acres north of Durango in June and July 2002. Ryan said a fire of that intensity could have oxidized sulfur molecules that bind mercury in organic matter in the soil. Ryan said a large wildfire could also introduce mercury into the water another way, by speeding erosion and allowing the mercury to wash into a water sour...

Brownfield Sites Brownfield sites are abandoned or underused industrial and commercial facilities available for re-use. Expansion or redevelopment of such a facility may be complicated by real or perceived environmental contaminations.[1] Cf. Waste (law). Example of brownfield land at a disused gasworks site after excavation, with soil contamination from removed underground storage tanks. In the United States city planning jargon, a brownfield site (or simply a brownfield) is land previously used for industrial purposes or certain commercial uses. The land may be contaminated by low concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution and has the potential to be reused once it is cleaned up. Land that is more severely contaminated and has high concentrations of hazardous waste or pollution, such as a Superfund site, does not fall under the brownfield classification. Mothballed brownfields are properties which the owners are not willing to transfer or put to productive reuse.[2] … In the Unit...