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8750986 
Meetings & Symposia 
Phytoremediation as a strategy for remote contaminated sites 
Murray, E; Poltorak, B; Cryer, K; Dunn, A; Quesnel, M; Gerwing, P; Greenberg, B 
2021 
Environment Canada 
761-775 
English 
Earthmaster Environmental Strategies has successfully implemented plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR)-enhanced phytoremediation systems (PEPSystems®) for the remediation of crude petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC) contaminated soil at three sites located in northern Alberta. PEPSystems utilize soil bacteria coated onto the surface of seeds to facilitate better plant growth and greater production of abundant root biomass in impacted soils. This stimulates growth of endogenous rhizobacteria to enable degradation of PHCs, partitioning of contaminants out of the soil, and sequestration of salt into plant foliage. PEPSystems was first deployed at two sites near Edson in 2013 and at a third site in March of 2018 to treat historical oil and gas related contamination. PEPSystems successfully lowered PHC fraction F2 concentrations by 61% to comply with the Alberta remediation guideline value. PEPSystems also achieved decreases of 73% and 41 % of fraction F3 concentration in fine textured soil and coarse textured soils, respectively. These decreases were accurately predicted using previously established kinetic equations for fractions F2 and F3, confirming that, for phytoremediation sites located in western Canada, accurate PEPSystems remediation times can be predicted. Preliminary culturable bacteria amounts were shown to be consistent when comparing the bacteria in soil treatment layers to bacteria in stockpiled soil arising from successfully treated layers that had been removed. In addition, the presence of PHC did not appear to have a significant effect on bacteria amounts. A number of enhancements to PEPSystems has resulted in a cost effective and reliable way to remediate hydrocarbon impacted soil in an environmentally friendly low carbon output manner. © 2021 Proceedings of the 43rd AMOP Technical Seminar on Environmental Contamination and Response. All rights reserved.