IPY-132-CANADA #186-POLAR BIOREM-BIORESTORATION OF CONTAMINATED SOILS AND SEDIMENTS NEAR SCIENTIFIC STATIONS IN POLAR REGIONS

PROJECT CANADA #186 FOR IPY:
WITH THE COLLABORATION OF FRANCE AND ARGENTINE SCIENTIST

Arctic: June 2007 to August 2008
Antarctic: December 2006 to April 2008

Scientific and military stations in polar and sub-polar regions have been and
are still dependent on fossil fuels for their unique source of energy. The
result has been the accidental contamination of soils surrounding stations
mainly by diesel fuel and sometimes the nearby marine ecosystem by small or
large oil spills from shipping activities. Furthermore, many stations had
burned and often are still burning wastes on the site spreading polyaromatic
hydrocarbons and soot in the vicinity of stations. Cleanup and restoration of
hydrocarbons contaminated soils are difficult tasks in polar regions due to
extreme fragility of soil and nearshore ecosystems, low temperature and limited
access to heavy cleanup equipment. The approach now adopted by most countries
already active in restoring contaminated sites is to develop "in-situ
bioremediation methods" which consist in encouraging natural microbial
communities to degrade oil residues and PAHs by adding nutrients or selecting
highly performing bacteria collected from these sites. Scientific progress has
been important in the last decade, but not enough fast to face the emergency
case we are now facing with the fast warm-up of both polar regions. In many
cases, water soluble oil and PAHs components (the most toxic ones) have slowly
migrated to permafrost level and persisted there. As permafrost layer will go
down and eventually disappear in some regions, there is an urgent need to speed
up research and development of efficient methods for ?biorestoration? of
hydrocarbons contaminated soils and sediments in polar stations and transfer
these techniques to countries without expertise and financial support in
bioremediation technology.

Taking the opportunity of the IPY 2007 and the increasing awareness of world
population about the importance of preserving and restoring fragile polar
environments, we propose to develop a world R&D network on the best
technologies to be use in a very near future to biorestore and protect soil and
nearby marine ecosystems from fossil fuels and PAHs from on-site burning. Such
a network is already partly in place as our team at ISMER (Universit? du Qu?bec
? Rimouski) is working with France (Institut Paul-?mile Victor, IPEV) for over
10 years and with Argentina Antarctic Institute for 4 years. The project will
consist in conducting one-year comparative bioremediation experiments in
various sites using emerging techniques from participating countries and
determining key factors which control the success or the failure of proposed
techniques. The final step will be to transfer successful technologies to
demanding countries.

This project is a world wide extension of ongoing programs on bioremediation
and biorestotarion of oiled soils and sediments conducted by France and
Argentina in co-operation with a Canadian team. One Canadian PhD student is
presently at Juvany station with MacCormack team. Principal Canadian
investigator will be at Kerguelen and Crozet Islands in January 2006.In all
cases, the Canadian team is responsible for chemical and toxicological
analysis. The project includes the settlement of a permanent Canada/Argentina
laboratory at Esperanza station where two large houses (formally used by
officers) are already available for scientific activities around the year. If
Argentina provides hosing, electricity, sampling boats and transportation to
Ushuaia, the contribution from Canada is expected to provide scientific
instruments and sampling means to be permanently present on the station.

Prof Emilien Pelletier - Institut des Sciences de la Mer de Rimouski (ISMER)
Daniel Delille - CNRS/IPEV, France
Walter MacCormack - Instituto Antartico Argentino, Argentina
Antonio Curtosi - Instituto Antartico Argentino, Argentina
Georges Feller - Universit? de Li?ge, Belgium
Gijs Breedveld - Geotechnical Institute, Norway

All countries involved in the network will have to provide the environmental
status of their own past and present polar stations in order to establish where
bioremediation experiments will be conducted. The extent and intensity of the
contamination will be determining factors to decide were experiments will be
conducted. The project will have to locate permafrost level (if any) and
estimate any change occurring in present years compared to previous decades.
Experiments will be conducted in both Arctic and Antarctic stations in order to
compare capacity of local bacterial communities to degrade fossil hydrocarbons
under comparable weather conditions. The project will involve "bioaugmentation
experiments" using selected bacterial consortia from contaminated sites and
their re-introduction at the same site with optimum conditions.