GROUND WATER AT SOME AIR FORCE FACILITIES HAS BECOME CONTAMINATED WITH JET FUEL.

GROUND WATER AT SOME AIR FORCE FACILITIES HAS BECOME CONTAMINATED WITH JET FUEL. THIS MATERIAL IS COMPRISED OF OVER 200 COMPONENTS, MOST OF WHICH ARE STRAIGHT AND BRANCHED-CHAIN HYDROCARBONS HAVING BETWEEN FIVE AND FIFTEEN CARBON ATOMS. SINCE ORGANISMS KNOWN TO DEGRADE SIMILAR COMPOUNDS ARE WIDESPREAD IN SOIL, IN SITU BIOREMEDIATION IS CONSIDERED A PROMISING APPROACH. THIS PROCESS CONSISTS OF ADDING OXYGEN AND NUTRIENTS TO THE GROUNDWATER TO STIMULATE HYDROCARBON-DEGRADING BACTERIA. CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICAL ASSOCIATES PROPOSES TO INVESTIGATE THE FEASIBILITY OF BIODEGRADATION OF JET FUEL BY CARRYING OUT TWO TYPES OF LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS USING MIXED CULTURE MICROCOSMS DEVELOPED FROM CONTAMINATED AQUIFER SAMPLES. ONE TYPE OF MICROCOSM WILL BE AN AQUEOUS SUSPENSION, IN A SEALED FLASK, WITH BACTERIA, JET FUEL, AND NUTRIENTS. DEGRADATION WILL BE MEASURED BY 20(2) PRODUCTION AND THE COMPONENTS DEGRADED WILL BE DETERMINED USING GAS CHROMATOGRAPH. THE SECOND TYPE OF MICROCOSM WILL BE A FLOWTHROUGH SOIL COLUMN TO SIMULATE THE PROCESSES THAT WOULD OCCUR DURING BIOREMEDIATION OF AN AQUIFIER. LOSS OF PERMEABILITY DUE TO BACTERIAL FOULING, AND DEGRADATION OF JET FUEL IN SOIL WILL BE STUDIED. THE BASIS WILL BE PROVIDED FOR PHASE II EXPERIMENTS TO OPTIMIZE NUTRIENT/OXYGEN DELIVERY SYSTEMS AND TO SCIENTIFICALLY DOCUMENT THE PROCESS IN THE FIELD.