Historical leakage from machinery at a manufacturing plant in Northwest Italy had caused contamination of the underlying soil and groundwater. The contaminated site fell into disuse, but now has been given a temporary alternative use as a motocross track, whilst it is being remediated for future sale.

The contamination consists of a thick, heavy oil floating on top of the groundwater surface. Due to its high viscosity, preceding oil removal activities (both manually and with skimmers) had proven unsuccessful, even though these had been undertaken over a number of years.