Press Advisory

Press Advisory: Friday, September 7, 2001

NEW COST STUDY ANNOUNCED ON SIX COMMON CLEANUP TECHNOLOGIES

Chris Paulitz 202-564-9556 / paulitz.chris@epa.gov

On September 1, the EPA Technology Innovation Office announced the release of the "Remediation Technology Cost Compendium - Year 2000" (EPA 542-R-01-009). This new report provides a summary and analysis of historical cost information for six commonly-applied remediation technologies to clean up contaminated soil and groundwater. Cost data for bioremediation, thermal desorption, soil vapor extraction (SVE), on-site incineration, groundwater pump-and-treat systems and permeable reactive barriers were obtained from federal agency sources with data extracted from approximately 150 projects. Based on these data, cost curves were developed for bioventing, thermal desorption, SVE, and pump-and-treat systems, showing the correlation between unit cost and quantity of material treated. The cost curve on SVE, for instance, illustrates that unit cost decreased from $60 to $350 per cubic yard for projects treating up 10,000 cubic yards of soil to less than $5 per cubic yard for projects treating relatively larger quantities of soil. For the three soil treatment technologies with cost curves (bioventing, thermal desorption, and SVE), the unit costs tended to increase rapidly and show greater variability for treatment of less than 10,000 to 20,000 cubic yards of soil. The variability shown in the unit costs indicates that a number of factors potentially impact the cost of a technology application, that those factors vary by technology, and that the impact of those factors is site-specific.

To view or download the report, go to: http://cluin.org/techpubs.htm. Paper copies are available from the National Service Center at 1-800-490-9198.