Groundwater remediation requires pumping enormous water volumes to remove tiny contaminant amounts.

Evidence

The clean-up of the Wells G and H site, now in its sixth year, proceeds under the supervision of the Environmental Protection Agency. Two groundwater treatment systems have pumped seventy-four million gallons of contaminated water out of the Aberjona aquifer. The treatment systems, which consist of ultraviolet radiation and chemical oxidation, have extracted approximately seventy-one gallons of contaminants, mostly TCE and perc, from the groundwater. In addition, sixteen hundred tons of contaminated soil have been removed from the Beatrice property and incinerated. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 3164

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the arithmetic of environmental cleanup — moving seventy-four million gallons to extract seventy-one gallons — as a parable of industrial age externalities.
• XREF: Resonates with the book’s broader argument about the mismatch between measurable harm and the cost of undoing it.