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Development of an integrated economic decision-support tool for the remediation of contaminated sites

Summary

This report concludes the first phase in the design of an innovative computer tool that will ultimately enable managers of contaminated sites to make the best decisions for the rehabilitation of these sites. The main objective of the project was to develop the foundations of a software package (referred to here as "SITE VII") that would provide a comprehensive and rigorous approach to comparing remediation scenarios for sites contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbons. During the period covered by this first phase of the project, the NSERC Industrial Chair in Site Remediation and Management at École Polytechnique de Montréal carried out four stages with a view to designing a computer tool that could be used by any manager on a simple computer platform. These four steps are: refining the technico-economic evaluation model, developing databases for five soil remediation technologies, putting on paper a structure for integrating information into the technico-economic model and simulating the remediation of a contaminated site using the model and certain databases already created. In the progress report, the emphasis was placed on developing the techno-economic model, supported by a very simple remediation simulation using a single technology. In this report, the focus has been on integrating the various components needed to create a management software package, with the techno-economic model at its heart. An entire chapter of the report is devoted to developing the software's decision structure. The information processing is outlined and explained step by step. In terms of the technologies covered by the software, five technologies have been detailed, namely in situ bioventilation, biopile treatment (biotertre), in situ bioaspiration, biobarking and thermal desorption. For each technology, a technology sheet has been created. This contains a brief description of the technology, its performance, a list of applicability criteria and a presentation of treatment costs according to the ranges most commonly encountered in the literature. For in situ bioventilation and biopile treatment, because of their use in the simulations presented in this report, a list of equipment requirements, drawn up following the sizing of the technologies, accompanies the technology sheets. In addition, rather than creating economic databases for each technology integrated into the software, it was decided to set up generalized databases for all the technologies and specific to various remediation operations (e.g. laboratory analyses, air extraction system). Databases specific to a technology for a given site will be created from these general databases for each simulation according to the needs of the technologies. This allows greater flexibility in the economic evaluation of each technology and facilitates a possible update of costs by requiring only one modification, regardless of whether the modified element is used by one or several technologies. Twelve simulations were carried out for the remediation of a virtual diesel-contaminated site. Each simulation is constrained by a maximum restoration time and/or a maximum benefit associated with the restored site. The complexity of certain optimal restoration strategies highlights the need for site managers to have a tool such as the SITE VII software.

Finally, having laid the foundations of the software, this report presents a series of recommendations for future work with a view to finalising the design of SITE VII software, so that it is complete, functional and has a user-friendly interface.

Keywords: sites contaminés, logiciel, site 7, base de données économiques, coût du traitement, comparaison de scénario de traitement, remediation of contaminated sites, decision-support tools

Publication date: May 2004

Achievement: Ecole Polytechnique de Montréal

Reference: 02-0507/2A


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