Bacteria to the rescue
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - 09:01
in Earth & Climate
At several U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) sites, uranium mining, milling, and processing have led to groundwater contamination that persists above drinking water standardsin spite of natural flushing and the removal of contaminated sediments. A multi-institutional research team, including researchers at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), is investigating the use of bioremediation to treat the subsurface uranium plumes and remove pollutants. Research conducted by the team at the Integrated Field Research Challenge (IFRC) site in Rifle, Colorado has shown that indigenous bacteria can be stimulated to immobilize the uranium, resulting in groundwater concentrations below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard.