The snail as a target organism for the evaluation of industrial waste dump contamination and the efficiency of its remediation.

The diagnosis of contamination and the efficiency of remediation of an industrial waste dump (IWD) were done before and after remediation. For this study, two species of snails were used for passive and active biomonitoring: a nonnative species, Helix pomatia and young garden snails (Helix aspersa aspersa) of standardized rearing (age, 2 months). Bioaccumulation analysis of pollutants (cadmium, nickel, iron, lead, chromium, manganese, copper, and zinc) in viscera of the snails gave data on the evolution of the biotop biodisponibility over time. Those data allowed the conclusion that the snails were useful for passive and active biomonitoring. Comparison of two contamination grids corroborated previous conclusions. Furthermore, the results obtained indicated the efficiency of the remediation technique used for the IWD. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.