A study of long-term MTBE attenuation in the borden aquifer, Ontario, Canada

In 1988 and 1989, a natural gradient tracer test was performed in the shallow aerobic sand aquifer at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Borden. A mixture of ground water containing dissolved oxygenated gasoline was injected below the water table along with chloride (Cl-) as a conservative tracer. The migration of BTEX, MTBE, and Cl- was monitored in detail for 16 months. The mass of BTEX compounds in the plume diminished significantly with time due to intrinsic aerobic biodegradation, while MTBE showed only a small decrease in mass over the 16-month period. In 1995/96, a comprehensive ground water sampling program was undertaken to define the mass of MTBE still present in the aquifer. Since the plume had migrated into an unmonitored section of the Borden Aquifer, numerical modeling and geostatistical methods were applied to define an optimal sampling grid and to improve the level of confidence in the results. A drive point profiling system was used to obtain ground water samples. Numerical modeling with no consideration of degradation predicted maximum concentrations in excess of 3000 mu g/L field sampling found maximum concentrations of less than 200 mu g/L. A mass balance for the remaining MTBE mass in the aquifer eight years after injection showed that only 3% of the original mass remained. Sorption, volatilization, abiotic degradation, and plant uptake are not considered significant attenuation processes for the field conditions. Therefore, we suggest that biodegradation may have played a major role in the attenuation of MTBE within the Borden Aquifer.