NATURAL ATTENUATION OF ACETONE, MIBK, MEK, THF AND TBA: WHAT IS HAPPENING IN WEST KL AVENUE SITE ?

The landfill on West KL Avenue is located in Oshtemo Township, 7 miles west of Kalamazoo downtown, Kalamazoo, Michigan. The EPA controls the site because it is listed as a Superfund site. It was closed in 1979 as a result of groundwater contamination problem in the upper unconfined aquifer and since then it is being monitored through a network of monitoring wells in the impacted area downgradient from the site. The subsurface in the area is predominantly glacial till and outwash sediments.

Three groups of compounds; (a) ketone (acetone, methyl iso-butyl ketone-MIBK, methyl ethyl ketone-MEK), (b) ether (tetrahydrofuran-THF), and (c) alcohol (tert-butyl alcohol-TBA), has been selected for the study of natural attenuation of these at the site. Compounds such as, dichloroethanes(DCE), dichloroethanes(DCA), BTEX emanating from the site has shown degradation under both aerobic and anaerobic environments in previous studies. But the interaction and fate of the compounds selected has not been researched enough by the scientific community to come to a conclusion about the fate of the compounds, though there is no doubt that biodegradation is one of the major component of natural attenuation mechanism active at the site. First order rate constants have been calculated for these compounds using available methods. Groundwater flow was analyzed to predict the future of the contaminants in time and space.

An insight into the fate of these selected compounds has been attempted in this research. The rate constants show that not all of the compounds, but some are naturally attenuated in the downgradient portion of the plume under favorable subsurface conditions.