ECONOMICS AND VALUATION OF BIOAUGMENTATION - Bioaugmentation for Groundwater Remediation - page 307

CHAPTER 11
ECONOMICS AND VALUATION
OF BIOAUGMENTATION
Thomas A. Krug, 1 Evan Cox, 1 David W. Major 1 and Mark Harkness 2
1 Geosyntec Consultants, Inc., Guelph, Ontario, Canada; 2 GE Global Research, Niskayuna,
NY 12309
11.1 INTRODUCTION
Bioaugmentation costs as a component of enhanced in situ bioremediation (EISB) gener-
ally are small relative to the overall costs of implementing EISB. The additional costs to include
bioaugmentation typically represent less than 3% of the total costs for an EISB system. Given
the small relative cost and the potential benefits (discussed in Chapter 5 ) , bioaugmentation can
be an important enhancement to EISB.
The key potential economic benefits of bioaugmentation are: (1) reduction in the time
required to achieve complete dechlorination of chlorinated solvents (or complete degradation
of other target compounds), thereby reducing both the monitoring costs and the overall costs
for the electron donor (or capturing more of the value of the electron donor initially injected);
(2) reduction in regulatory oversight by achieving treatment objectives sooner; (3) reduction in
the time required to return the groundwater to beneficial use by achieving treatment goals in a
shorter period of time; and (4) ability to apply EISB at sites where this approach would
otherwise not be effective and where other more expensive approaches would be required.
These benefits will be realized only at sites where suitable microorganisms are not present or
are present at low initial concentrations. There are no drawbacks to conducting bioaugmenta-
tion even when suitable microorganisms are present, other than the additional cost.
This chapter discusses the primary cost drivers for bioaugmentation (Section 11.2 ), costs
and benefits associated with bioaugmentation (Section 11.3 ), and the economics of alternative
approaches for bioaugmentation (Section 11.4 ). The chapter then presents example scenarios
and detailed costs for bioaugmentation for these scenarios (Section 11.5 ). Much of the discus-
sion relates to the use of bioaugmentation cultures containing Dehalococcoides ( Dhc ) for the
degradation of chlorinated ethenes such as perchloroethene (PCE), trichloroethene (TCE) and
degradation products of these compounds, because Dhc bioaugmentation cultures are well
established commercially. However, the cost drivers and general economic considerations will
be relevant to other bioaugmentation cultures as well.
11.2 PRIMARY COST DRIVERS
The technical benefits of bioaugmentation as a component of EISB are well established
(Major et al., 2002 ; Lendvay et al., 2003 ). However, the costs and cost benefits or value of
bioaugmentation are dictated by various design parameters and remediation objectives that
affect the amount and distribution of the culture, as well as requirements that the EISB system
meet stakeholder objectives and expectations.
If the remediation objectives for a site dictate that biodegradation must be initiated in a
short timeframe, bioaugmentation can provide greater assurance that the objectives will be