Evaluating the movement of dissolved porewater species through a marine sediment 51 years after establishment of a pulp and paper effluent stabilization basin

Craig B. Lake, Xiaofei Song, Ian S. Spooner, Hayden A. Tackley, Tony R. Walker, Rob C. Jamieson

Résultat de recherche: Articleexamen par les pairs

2 Citations (Scopus)

Résumé

Over 50 years ago, a marine estuary was converted to a wastewater stabilization basin for treatment of primarily pulp and paper effluent. As a result, the basin was immediately converted to a “freshwater” environment and subsequently accumulated a thin layer of black, organic-rich sediment containing varying amounts of dioxins and furans, metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and petroleum hydrocarbons. Previous studies on the site have shown that the majority of this contamination in the basin appears to have been contained within this black sediment layer and not migrated to any significant extent into the original underlying marine sediments. The purpose of this study is to examine sediment porewater chemistry changes that have occurred over 51 years of operation of the stabilization basin with the intent of better understanding why contamination has been minimal into the underlying natural marine sediments. Field and laboratory testing is presented to characterize the physical, chemical, and mineralogical sediments in the basin. Porewater chemistry profiles obtained from this work are then used in combination with a one-dimensional contaminant transport model to examine the role of diffusion, sorption, and upward groundwater flux in the porewater profiles found for the sediments.

Langue d'origineEnglish
Pages (de-à)1901-1918
Nombre de pages18
JournalCanadian Geotechnical Journal
Volume59
Numéro de publication11
DOI
Statut de publicationPublished - 2022

Note bibliographique

Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the cooperation of Nova Scotia Lands Inc. required for this research. Funding for this work was provided by Nova Scotia Lands Inc. and the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC, grant No. RGPIN-2018-04049).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, Canadian Science Publishing. All rights reserved.

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology

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