Introduction to Contaminated Site Management - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 65

groundwater 'Pump-and-Treat', that is, extracting contaminated groundwater from
the aquifer and cleaning it in water treatment facilities, was often applied. But
for bigger sites 'Dig-and-Dump' was often too comprehensive and expensive. And
extraction of contaminated groundwater did not always explicitly solve the problem,
since it resulted in contamination of clean groundwater through desorption of con-
taminants from the solid phase of the aquifer. For these reasons, mainly financial,
technologies that required long-term aftercare were usually applied. An example of
such a technology is the boxing in of contaminated parts of an aquifer by means of
sheet pile walls.
1.8.3 Fitness-for-Use
A much more (cost-)efficient alternative for contaminated site management is the
concept of Fitness-for-Use (or: Fit-for-Purpose or Suitable-for-Use). This concept
implies that the assessment and management of the contaminated site relates to a
specific type of land use. This could either be the present or the future land use.
The latter is often an option when an alternative type of land use would fit the
present soil quality better. Since the late 1980s, the concept of Fitness-for-Use
has gained in popularity and has gradually become the leading concept in most
countries.
The advantage of Fitness-for-Use is simply that in most cases less strict require-
ments can be applied. This is much more efficient in terms of the time frames
needed for Risk Management activities and costs. Besides that, for many scien-
tists, consultants and regulators, but also for the general public, Fitness-for-Use is a
rather logical concept. The idea behind this conception is that, such as most com-
mon things in life, things need to be suited for a specific, appropriate purpose. A
garage, for example, needs to be suitable for parking a car and not as a playground
for children.
The disadvantage of the Fitness-for-Use approach is that aftercare is often
needed. Humans can live, work or recreate at a specific site, without experienc-
ing unacceptable human health effects. And when the soil ecosystem is considered
as a protection target, the soil ecosystem can be sufficiently protected under spe-
cific conditions. However, contaminants might threaten clean groundwater through
leaching and migrate to places with a more sensitive land use for human beings or
the soil ecosystem. Another drawback of the Fitness-for-Use concept is that inten-
sive administration procedures are needed in order to keep an on-going account
of the state of the soil contamination and of the restrictions for the use of a site.
Moreover, compared to the multifunctional approach, intensive investigations using
Risk Assessment procedures and defining appropriate Risk Management solutions,
often including remediation plans, are needed.
In the framework of the concerted action known as CLARINET (Contaminated
Land Rehabilitation Network for Environmental Technologies) a concept of risk-
based soil quality management has been advocated so as to be able to guide the
Fitness-for-Use, called Risk-based Land Management ( RBLM ).