Prior to a “no-pit” order in 1971 oil field operations producing contaminated soils were routine and widely accepted. Leaky pumps and flowings produced spills that were never remediated; well deliverability was tested by flowing to pits and untreatable emulsions from separators, heater treaters, free water knockout and storage tanks were dumped in open pits. About 15 oil fields in Alabama were in production before the no-pit order. We estimate that more than 100 buried and unremediated pits remain in these fields. These pit are a hazard to livestock and children and must be completely remediated when the oil fields reach their economic limits and the land is reclaimed for agricultural and residential use.
      These sites could be remediated by several different metnods, including bioremediation, excavation and transportation to a dump site, soil washing, soil incineration, and conversion to fuels by agglomeration-flotation with fine coal or petroleum coke. Bioremediation will not work on highly contaminated soils and can be slow for heavy or weathered oils. The simplest clean-up method is excavation and dumping at approved waste sites, but this only relocates the problem. Hot-water washing is effective only with very large-grain-size soils such as sand and the recovered oil forms emulsions that are difficult to handle and process. Incineration is expensive. Special incinerators are required, the energy value of the waste oil is lost and air pollution may be produced. The method of agglomeration-flotation is the focus of this proposal.
      We have been working on clean-up of oil-contaminated soils with the method of agglomeration-flotation since 1991. In this technique fine coal, or fine petroleum coke, is blended with the soil in a hot-water slurry. The oil agglomeratesw are then removed by flotation and can burned as fuel. The cleaned soil dewatered and returned to the ground. Successful demonstrations have been dine with artificially contaminated beach sand, silty loam and Sucarnoochee soil. It is quick, portable, and produces a commercial fuel as a byproduct.