Engineering Commons^™

Soil Gas Transport Above A Jet Fuel/Solvent Spill At Plattsburgh Air Force Base, David Ostendorf, Alan J. Lutenegger, Shawn P. Kelley, Erich S. Hinlein

David Ostendorf

We calibrate a stoichiometrically coupled soil gas diffusion model with spatially resolved observations of oxygen, carbon dioxide, total hydrocarbon, and trichloroethylene vapor concentrations in the unsaturated zone above a weathered jet fuel/solvent spill at Plattsburgh Air Force Base in upstate New York. The calibration suggests that aerobic microorganisms in the capillary fringe degrade jet fuel vapor at a steady rate of 9.5 μg hydrocarbons (m−2 s−1). The solvent does not degrade in the fringe, however, and the model and data estimate a steady evaporation rate of 1.2×10−2 μg TCE (m−2 s−1). Barometric pumping slightly alters the steady concentration profile at …