Remediation Tradeoffs Addressed WithSimulated Annealing Optimization

Escalation of groundwater remediation costs has encouraged both advances in optimization techniques to balance remediation objectives and economics and development of innovative technologies to expedite source region clean-ups. We present an optimization application building on a pump-and-treat model, yet assuming a priori removal of different portions of the source area to address the evolving management issue of more aggressive source remediation. Separate economic estimates of in-situ thermal remediation are combined with the economic estimates of the subsequent optimal pump-and-treat remediation to observe tradeoff relationships of cost vs. highest remaining contamination levels (hot spot). The simulated annealing algorithm calls the flow and transport model to evaluate the success of a proposed remediation scenario at a U.S.A. Superfund site contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs).