From Planning to Operations: An Integrated Approach to Wastewater Treatment Facility

Abstract Submission: Oil spills, manufacturing, coal production, and burning fossil fuels in Alaska have contributed to significant soil contamination. Additionally, rapid regional temperature increases have contributed to the degradation of permafrost layers in the Arctic region, leading to a carbon-feedback loop that further introduces hydrocarbon contaminants to the area and exacerbates the effects of climate change. Microbial soil bioremediation has been proposed for the Arctic region as a cost-effective soil decontamination method to remediate hydrocarbon sources in soils without significantly posing harmful side effects to the surrounding environment. In this study, we collected soil samples from Alaska and analyzed them for environmental conditions, such as nutrient availability, pH, and moisture content. Subsequently, these soil samples were contaminated with naphthalene, and bioremediation experiments were conducted at 25° C and 5° C, respectively. We observed a percentage removal of 88% and 25% when the experiments were nutrient limited. Based on the experimental results, we found that the ambient temperature performed significantly better than the cold temperature experiments. These experiments are currently being conducted without nutrient limitation, and we hypothesize that the removal percentage will increase in the ambient temperature experiments.

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