Mitigation of the Environmental Health Risk on Military Air Bases Polluted with Hydrocarbons

AbstractThis paper presents the environmental and health threats caused by petroleum products as well as the results of remediation work on five air bases where biological cleaning methods developed by the authors were implemented. The aviation fuel leakages endangered the health of people and surface water streams at the sites as well as in distant locations. The aim of the research was to verify remediation techniques developed in laboratory tests. The initial concentration of total petroleum products in the soils reached 2,320–8,770 mg/kg of dry matter, which presented an extremely high risk to the population and the environment. The autochthonous bacterial strains, which included Pseudomonas fluorescens, Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, Pseudomonas putida I, and Pseudomonas putida II, were proven to be very effective in degrading the xenobiotics. The applied microorganisms in conjunction with the authors’ remediation techniques produced very successful results. In the technical ex situ and in situ tests, the concentration of gasoline range organics C6–C12 at the considered bases was reduced to 14–58 mg/kg, allowing safe usage of the facilities and helping prevent propagation of the contaminants.