Ground-Water Remediation with Granular Collection System

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the use of a granular ground-water collection system to increase ground-water recovery well yield and radial influence during remediation of gasoline-contaminated ground water. The field study was conducted at a site in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Two identical recovery wells were designed and installed within the granular ground-water collection system (RW No. 1) and the native silty fine sand soils (RW No. 2), respectively, in order to allow a direct comparison of recovery well yields and radial influence. The comparison was based on laboratory grain size and permeability tests, and in-situ yield and pump tests. The results show that RW No. 1 can produce 2.2–4.5 times the quantity of ground water of RW No. 2, and that the radial influence (ground-water drawdown) created by extracting from RW No. 1 was three to four times the drawdown from RW No. 2. There was a significant improvement in ground-water quality since the implementation of the remediation system. The achieved increase in the recovery well yield and radial influence should reduce the time and cost to complete a ground-water remediation project.