Authors : A.K. Onifade , F.A. Abubakar and F.O. Ekundayo
Abstract: Remediation by Enhanced Natural Attenuation (RENA) is a land farming treatment technology, which relies on natural processes to clean up or attenuate pollution in soil and groundwater. There is the need for remediation because crude oil spills may cause damage to the environment in many ways. Oil spill on land may lead to retardation of vegetation growth and cause soil infertility for a long period of time until natural processes reestablish stability. In the present study, RENA was employed to remediate oil-contaminated site in the Gokana local government area of Rivers State of Nigeria between January and September 2006. Mineral salt medium to which crude oil had been added was used as a sole source of carbon and energy to isolate hydrocarbon utilizers from soil samples collected from different plots of the contaminated site. Two fungi Articulosprium inflata and Zoopage mitospora as well as five bacterial genera; Lactobacillus, Arthrobacter, Bacillus, Pseudomonas and Micrococcus were isolated and identified. This study also indicated that the counts of Total Heterotrophic Bacteria (THB) varied over a period of 18 weeks. The microbial and physicochemical properties of the soil samples varied with the different plots and at different periods of remediation.
A.K. Onifade , F.A. Abubakar and F.O. Ekundayo , 2007. Bioremediation of Crude Oil Polluted Soil in the Niger Delta Area of Nigeria Using Enhanced Natural Attenuation . Research Journal of Applied Sciences, 2: 498-504.