Technologies for remediating radioactively contaminated land

This paper gives an overview of technologies that can be used for the remediation of radioactively contaminated ground. There are a wide variety of techniques available-most have established track records for contaminated ground, though in general many are only just being adapted to use for radioactively contaminated ground. Remediation techniques for radioactively contaminated ground involve either removal of the contamination and transfer to a controlled/contained facility such as the national LLW repository at Drigg, or immobilization, solidification and stabilization of the contamination where the physical nature of the soil is changed, or an 'agent' is added to the soil, to reduce the migration of the contaminants, or isolation and containment of the contaminated ground to reduce contaminant migration and control potential detrimental effects to human health. Where contamination has to be removed, ex situ and in situ techniques are available which minimize the waste requiring disposal to an LLW repository. These techniques include detector-based segregation soil washing by particle separation soil washing with chemical leaching agents electroremediation phytoremediation. Although many technologies are potentially applicable, their application to the remediation of a specific contaminated site is dependent on a number of factors and related to detailed site characterization studies, results from development trails and BPEO (best practicable environmental option) studies. Those factors considered of particular importance are the clean-up target technical feasibility relative to the particular site, soil and contaminant characteristics, and timeframe site infrastructure arrangements and needs, the working life of the site and the duration of institutional care long-term monitoring arrangements for slow remedial techniques or for immobilization and containment techniques validation of the remediation health and safety aspects regulator and public acceptance cost.