Resource Recovery
Many locations have been contaminated by past activities, including both intentional and accidental releases of chemicals and toxic wastes. These sites require investigation to characterize the concentrations and locations of contaminants in the soil and groundwater, a risk assessment to estimate the health hazards of the contamination to humans and the ecosystem, and strategies to clean-up the site and return it to safe utilization.
The worst of these sites in the U.S. are calledÌý"Superfund"Ìýsites. Clean-up of these locations is overseen by the US Environmental Protection Agency. States oversee clean-up of many other sites. In Colorado, for example, many sites are being cleaned up under theÌýprocess. Many of these sites can be rehabilitated to enable use for businesses and industry. This type of work is termed "brownfields" restoration.
- Site characterization by collecting samples of soil, groundwater, sediment, surface water, air, and biota
- Conducting human health and ecological risk assessments with toxicologists, biologists, etc
- Developing target concentrations for clean-up with regulatory agencies and citizen groups
- Designing methods to clean-up sites, including in situ and ex situ treatment; these can include chemical, biological, and phyical methods
- Using modeling software to predict the fate and transport of contaminants at sites
- Operation and maintenance of remediation equipment at contaminated sites
Environmental Applications
- CHEN 3670 Sustainable Design of Chemical and Materials Systems - 3 credits
- CVEN 4353 Groundwater Engineering -3 credits
- GEOL 3030 Introduction to Hydrogeology -3 credits
- MCEN 4032 Sustainable Energy- 3 credits
- MCEN 4152 Introduction to Combustion- 3 credits
MCEN 4291 Project Based Learning in Rural Schools- 3 credits- two term class
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Geology Minor
This option is highly compatible with a .
Companies that Specialize in Remediation:
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