Postscript: summary of the Coventry Groundwater Investigation and implications for the future

Controls on dense non-aqueous-phase liquid transport in Permo-Triassic sandstones, UK

“…This delay, between spillage or release of solvents at the surface and their detection in a public-supply borehole, reflects both the likely lengthy travel times that can be anticipated in a very porous aquifer and the fact that routine groundwater monitoring for these compounds only commenced in the UK during the early-mid 1980s. Resistance of these compounds to chemical or biochemical breakdown in the subsurface environment (Aurand et al 1981) has ensured that the chlorinated solvents persist in groundwater following their disposal and handling many years or even decades previously (Lawrence & Foster 1991;Lerner et al 1993). A large body of work exists in the United States pertaining to the movement and fate of DNAPLs in aquifer systems (e.g.…”