Environmental Remediation strategies, Environmental Restoration permit/ license, Major Strategies in Remediation and more..
Petroleum is one of the most important energy resources and a raw material of the chemical industry. Nevertheless oil spills during exploration, transportation, and refining, can cause some environmental problems to soil, groundwater and air. Environmental remediation goes along side with oil and gas activities.
It may take more than 200 years to remidiate Environmental pollution oil and gas activities has caused in Niger Delta region in Nigeria.
There are various remediation techniques available for environmental restoration activities and can be classified in several ways such as in situ or ex situ, those for soil , surface or groundwater remediation, or basing on the physics or chemistry of the treatment.
This covers environmental remediation planning to implement remediation projects and stakeholder involvement you need to complete remediation projects successfully.
Environmental remediation refers to reducing pollution exposure, for example, from contaminated soil, groundwater or surface water. The purpose is more than just eliminating pollution sources; it is about protecting people and the environment against potential harmful effects from exposure to Oil and Gas industry pollution in Nigeria.
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In the past that can be traced to 1903, Oil & Gas exploratory work / activities has been on in Nigeria without appropriate consideration of their environmental aspects and impacts. Operations were run in situations in which laws and regulations did not exist or if they did, they were neither adequate nor comprehensive enough. Oil and Gas industry has been the major source/ contributor of Environmental pollution in Nigeria.
3 Major Strategies in Remediation
Three primary strategies used separately or in conjunction to remediate most sites are:
- Elimination or alteration of contaminants.
- Extraction or separation of contaminants from environmental media.
- Immobilization of contaminants.
Treatment technologies capable of contaminant elimination by altering their chemical/physical structure are:
- thermal
- biological
- chemical
These elimination technologies can be applied in situ or ex situ to contaminated media.
Treatment technologies commonly used for extraction and separation of contaminants from environmental media include
- soil treatment by thermal desorption
- soil washing
- solvent extraction
- oil vapor extraction (SVE)
- ground water treatment by either phase separation
- carbon adsorption
- air stripping
- ion exchange
or some combination of these technologies.
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Contaminated Sites
As a result, contaminated sites were created. As contaminated sites can ultimately lead to undesired health effects for local people, appropriate actions must be taken. Remediation of contaminated land areas — or other contaminated media, such as surface or groundwater — is applied in two ways:
(1) By applying actions to the contamination itself. This can lead to isolation, immobilization or removal of the actual source of hydrocarbon, for example by means of decontaminating areas, surfaces and environmental media.
(2) Evaluating risks related to hydrocarbon exposure to people and thinking of ways of breaking the pathways between the hydrocarbon source and people. This approach might lead to evacuation, area isolation or changing land use and the local population’s living habits. The two ways are complementary.
When deciding on the actual remediation work, several different factors need to be taken into account. As every site has its own characteristics, there is no simple quick fix.
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The most important thing is to understand that remediation actions need to be justified and optimized — the adopted actions must do more good than harm. For example, increased hydrocarbon levels do not necessarily mean that the increase is harmful; some living environments have inherently high hydrocarbon levels. Thus, evacuating or isolating areas without firm scientific grounds for it can needlessly cause distress to the people it concerns.
What to Consider When Defining Remediation Approaches
Remediation should not be confused with an emergency response after an accident, and thus it usually does not require urgent actions. For this reason, thorough evaluation of the situation and formulation of the desired goal is not only possible but a prerequisite. Proper planning is an essential aspect of any remediation work in order to reach the justified and optimized end state of the site.
The issues to be taken into account in the decision making process vary from technical to economic and social considerations, such as:
• Pollution risk to the population due to the land use — this is derived from the exposure assessment of people to hydrocarbon in the site;
• Occupational exposure due to remediation works — workers will also be exposed during the remediation works;
• Net benefits of the remediation works to the affected community — remediation should do more good than harm;
• Waste generation from remediation — remediation is generally a waste generating activity, and the amounts and properties of generated wastes need to be considered in the decision making process;
• Ethical issues — remediation may affect people’s lives and their living environment, including how they live;
• Financial costs of remediation — remediation work costs are generally high and, therefore, financing mechanisms need to be sought;
• Other non-hydrocarbon risks incurred — sites to be remediated may not be contaminated only by hydrocarbons but also by other non-hydrocarbon substances such as heavy metals and hazardous organic compounds.
As every country is different and every site has its own characteristics, choosing the best possible environmental remediation solution means balancing between risks, costs, benefits and available technologies as well as public acceptance.
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How Clean Is ‘Clean’?
The people, whose lives a contaminated site might affect, often have three fundamental questions in their mind: Is it safe for me and my family to live here? Who is responsible for this? Who is going to cover the expenses of the remediation works?
Without national policies, liability issues for the remediation are not addressed and it is unclear which parties are responsible for implementing the remediation works. In addition, the important question of who will pay for the remediation is not unequivocally answered. National policy and strategies set up societal values regarding the environment and the population.
Policy and strategies for implementing remediation need to be complemented by a consistent and well dimensioned regulatory framework. Regulations define in detail ‘how clean clean is’, i.e. the requirements that will need to be met in each given situation; the level of site characterization to be accepted before and after the remediation works; and the acceptable end state of the site. The overall process should be transparent, be communicated to the relevant stakeholders and allow for their participation in the decision making process.
Stakeholders’ Input
An important factor for a successful remediation project is for those people whose lives are affected by the contaminated site to be involved in and to contribute to the remediation process as they have a stake in the end result. It is not only an ethical matter but a moral obligation to involve various stakeholders in the remediation process. Listening to stakeholders’ opinions, capturing their perspectives and taking them into account from the very beginning of the remediation process assists the decision making process for taking the most appropriate approach.
Typically, a remediation project has a series of stakeholders, including, for example, the immediate affected population and communities, operators, regulators, non-governmental organizations as well as other segments of the society as a whole that may wish to have a say in the project decision making process.
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Key Aspects to Take into Account
To encapsulate the main principles of environmental remediation, four major aspects should be taken into account:
(1) A contaminated site may not necessarily impose significant health risks to people living on it.
(2) The focus should be on pollution doses and risks that the exposure might pose. Reduction of doses — and not necessarily reduction of concentrations — is the ultimate objective of a remediation project.
(3) Returning a site to the conditions before the event that caused the contamination is not necessary and many times not even reasonably achievable.
(4) The major driver for a remediation project will be less the scientific evidence of eventual health risks but rather public perception. Good communication and effective stakeholder involvement are, therefore, essential components for a successful remediation project.
As sites contaminated by artificial and natural radionuclides or even exposures of natural origin may give rise to the need for environmental remediation, remediation can only start after a consensus on the necessity to reduce existing or future exposures to oil and gas pollution. In all cases, the actual work, i.e. adopting certain environmental remediation actions, is always a case specific decision.
A range of different remediation technologies exists but regulators often tend to value proven technologies; in some cases, the available technologies are not adequate to achieve the desired goals and further development is needed.
For the sustainability of oil and gas business in Nigeria, modern exploration facilities and operations are designed in a way that also takes into account the end of the operation life cycle. In this way, the need for extensive environmental remediation activities is minimized.
The Things to Know about Environmental Remediation
• Environmental remediation refers to actions applied to the source of contamination or to the exposure pathways that may connect people to the source. Removing the source or breaking the pathways reduces exposures.
• A contaminated site does not automatically pose health risks to people in some cases.
• The more informal term ‘clean up’ is often used synonymously with environmental remediation. The terms rehabilitation and restoration are also commonly used in the context of environmental remediation.
• Contaminated sites were created in the past because of poor operational practices and lack of appropriate or effective environmental laws and regulations. In some cases, regulators’ inadequate oversight led to contaminated sites.
• Environmental remediation is a site specific action that depends on the environmental characteristics of a particular site, the type of contamination and available technologies. Hence, the costs for remediation also vary from site to site.
• Regarding contamination after an accident, there are already over sixty approaches that can be implemented in the remediation of the affected sites.
• There are several environmental remediation programmes in the world.: