CLEANSOIL is an INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION RESEARCH (INCO) PROJECT with a duration of 3 years and funded by the European Commission, which aims to develop and promote the use of a very simple and economically sound alternative for soil decontamination. The system enables the on-site/in-situ treatment of soil polluted by hazardous substances (heavy metals, hydrocarbons, etc), and is especially targeted for large areas of polluted land, in particular when soil removal is not practicable (under buildings, roads, railroads, etc). The method, based on absorption mechanisms, allows the removal of hazardous substances occurring as contaminants in soils as the result of local point source and/or diffuse contamination , and can even be used for preventive applications. The method consists in the insertion of several chords connecting a multitude of sorbent material-containing sockets inside the same number of parallel horizontal holes drilled in the ground. The sorbent's are then left in the soil for a certain time period in order to absorb the contaminants. After a period of time sufficient to attain the desired remediation effect the system is removed and the sorbent regenerated for further use.
The project will study the application of this new method for a wide range of contaminated soils in Russia and Ukraine by making the necessary adaptations and by testing the performance of different sorbent materials in order to establish selective systems for each kind of pollutant.

Duration: 2005-2007

Budget: 1.023.692 €

Partners:

• TECHNOLOGIE-TRANSFER-ZENTRUM BREMERHAVEN E.V. (Germany) - Coordinator
• LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY (Russian Federation, Moscow Region)
• INSTITUTE FOR NATURE MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS AND ECOLOGY (Ukraine)
• GLOBE WATER (Sweden)
• OOO DRILLING, ENGINEERING RESEARCH AND COMMUNICATION INSTALLATION (Russian Federation, Moscow region)
• ANALYTICAL CENTRE OF UGRA (Yugorsky) STATE UNIVERSITY, USU (YuSU), (Russian Federation, Kanty-Mansiysk Region )
• BIOAZUL S.L. (Spain)
• FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING WARSAW (Poland)
• INSTITUTE OF NORTH INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY PROBLEMS, KOLA SCIENCE CENTRE, RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE CENTRE (Russian Federation, Murmansk Region

   

Main technical objectives of the CLEANSOIL project:

• to develop and to test an innovative, simple, easy to handle, applicable under existing infrastructures and cost-effective on-site and in-situ soil remediation method able to achieve a degree of soil remediation that allows its reutilisation for different purposes,
• to find the suitable types, amounts and characteristics for sorbent materials or bacteria able to remove chlorinated solvents, petroleum hydrocarbons, heavy metals etc.,
• to establish soil and hydrological conditions in the system (borings, pipes and absorption system) good enough to allow the application of the CLEANSOIL method to very different soil conditions.

• to contribute to the development of methods for the remediation of contaminated soils up to the restoration of its vital functions, applicable both in the EU and the NIS
• to contribute to the development of methods able to avoid groundwater contamination and the spread of pollution from leaching.
• to raise awareness about the environmental/health/economic problems linked to soil pollution, and to inform and involve other relevant actors and stakeholders beyond the consortium.
• to strengthen the exchange of knowledge between EU and NIS (Russia and Ukraine) scientists.

Background:
Soil is a vital and largely non-renewable (in the 50-100 years timescale) resource increasingly under pressure. It performs a number of key environmental, social and economic functions vital for life: production, storage, water reservoir, filtering, buffering and transformation. Therefore, it plays a central role in water protection and in the exchange of gases with the atmosphere. It is also a habitat and gene pool, an element of the landscape and cultural heritage and a provider of raw materials.
In order to perform its many functions, it is necessary to maintain proper soil conditions. However, worldwide, dangerous chemical waste has been dumped for decades without consideration of the long-term problems. The same story can be seen in commercial, industrial and military sites, where hazardous chemicals were regularly used, spilt, lost, and discarded. In most cases, it was simply because doing anything else was both too expensive and legally unnecessary. In fact, one of the main threats to soil (apart from erosion, compaction and others) is local and diffuse contamination, that may result in damage to or loss of some or several functions of soils and possible cross contamination of groundwater, with the obvious risks to human health.
The general degradation process of soils all over the world, and in particular their contamination with harmful substances such as heavy metals, PCB, chlorinated hydrocarbons, etc, is leading to severe consequences on the environment, human health and the agricultural production system. The problem does not only affect those areas directly affected by polluting activities, because the exchange of pollutants between the soils and ground waters, makes it possible to observe harmful effects on locations many kilometers away from the pollution source.
This problem has reached especially alarming proportions in the countries formerly integrated in the Soviet Union (nowadays the NIS): decades of soil mismanagement have resulted in large highly degraded areas which are unusable for production purposes and that pose a risk for the health of the people living or working around. This happens in particular in areas where heavy industry was concentrated, in military bases, in fuel filling stations, in vehicle and other machinery repair stations (especially railway machinery) as well as along roads, railways and pipelines, etc. It is difficult to accurately know how many heavily polluted sites can be found on the former Soviet Union (the secrecy of the Soviet authorities has kept many of these sites unidentified), but all experts agree they amount many more than the 300,000 to be found in Western Europe. Due to its nature, soil pollution of course results in water pollution (practically all NIS countries suffer from the lack of safe and clean water) and crops contamination.
The method most generally used nowadays to address land pollutants is to excavate and remove the polluted land, which is then treated or transported to a landfill at another location. As a rule, this is a costly method that results in a heavy environmental load, due to long transport distances, among other factors. Furthermore, in many cases the excavation is not an option due to financial or technical reasons (for instance, the polluted land is covered by structures such as buildings, roads, railroads, etc which cannot be removed). The development of new technologies for the removal of poisons from the soil has thus become a priority.
Against this background, the present project will make it possible the use of a very simple and economically sound alternative to enable the on-site/in-situ treatment of hazardous substances, especially targeted for large areas of polluted land, and especially when the removal is not practicable (under buildings, roads, railroads, etc), and will therefore contribute to the improvement of the environment and quality of life of the citizens in Russia and Ukraine.

Further information can be found on the project website www.cleansoilproject.info.