The BACad project was the first full-scale demonstration of bioaugmentation for the remediation of a large CAH groundwater contamination in Europe.
The demonstration character of the BACad project focuses on three different aspects: (1) demonstration of the feasibility of BA on a full scale level, (2) demonstration of the cost efficiency and time efficiency of BA and (3) demonstration of the environmental benefits of BA.
The project has started with laboratory testing and a small pilot scale application. Consequently, the project was scaled up to achieve a full scale application. During the project, work methodologies have been developed for the practical implementation of the technique and for the transfer of bacteria from an inoculated area to a non-inoculated area. By developing and finetuning these work methodologies, it will be possible to use bioaugmentation for CAH contaminations at other sites in the future.
The evaluation of the project is done by monitoring the level of contamination and the relative proportion of different CAH contaminants against the Flemish soil remediation values and by monitoring the microbial population in the groundwater.