Remediation and stewardship: Coexisting processes to protect health and the environment

Organizations that manage property that poses risks for surrounding communities need to practice stewardship. Stewardship is defined as carrying out the responsibility to manage land and facilities in a sustainable manner, while being accountable to others who have a stake in those resources. This article reviews six case studies of organizational stewardship and derives a set of five lessons learned, along with four challenges. Lessons include developing stewardship goals, good stakeholder relationships, multiple approaches to safety, and encouraging innovation and stable funding. Challenges include bureaucratic processes, burdensome regulations, organizational continuity, and inter‐organizational cooperation. These crosscutting lessons learned about how to achieve success or avoid failure in long‐term management of resources can be applied to all types of public and private agencies, including the long‐term management of environmental contamination. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Lessons learned from classroom training on natural attenuation of chlorinated solvents

Technology and information transfer are critical functions within the remediation industry. Researchers in the private sector, academia, and government all struggle to have their findings accepted and put to good use by the remediation industry at large but must work even harder to have their findings accepted and put into practice by state and federal regulators in the environmental agencies overseeing cleanups. Unfortunately, many technology and information transfer efforts fail to reach state and federal regulators, and even fewer achieve regulatory acceptance. A two‐year‐long campaign to deliver a training class on the natural attenuation of chlorinated solvents in groundwater is one prominent example of very effective technology and information transfer. Several of the elements and aspects of that successful training class are presented and discussed in order to provide others with a proven and workable template. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Environmental response to intentional dissemination of Bacillus anthracis spores in the United States–2001

The intentional dissemination of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) spores at multiple locations in the United States in the fall of 2001 resulted not only in several deaths and illnesses (including psychological effects), but likely changed lifestyles and attitudes, and increased the public's awareness of individual vulnerability. While federal resources had previously been committed to preparing local public health agencies for counter‐terrorism activities and to enhance environmental and medical response, these release episodes have increased the consistency of environmental and medical response activities, and increased government resources for homeland security. This article abstracts current information from many sources that summarize the environmental responses to the anthrax releases. The article discusses the international agreements and the U.S. regulations concerning biological weapons, the characteristics of the anthrax organism, potential exposure pathways, adverse health conditions resulting from inhalation exposure, the environmental response to two specific release episodes, environmental sampling and analytical procedures, recommended personal protective equipment, and the subsequent federal efforts to improve response capabilities. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A study on the effects of oil fires on fire booms employed during the in situ burning of oil

For over 10 years scientists have studied the effects of in situ burning of oil on air and water quality and potential related health issues. The recent Newfoundland Offshore Burn experiment, conducted by Environment Canada, was the culmination of several years of work. The results of this experiment found that ‘emissions from the in situ oil fire were lower than expected and all compounds and parameters measured were below health concerns at 150 m from the fire’ (The Newfoundland Offshore Burn Experiment—NOBE, Preliminary Results of Emissions Measurement). Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) were found to be lower in the soot generated from the fire than in the starting oil prior to the fire. The conclusion reached was that the environmental benefits resulting from the burning of oil spills far outweigh the potential air pollution caused from the smoke. These findings now open the door on the use of in situ burning of oil as a major tool to be used to mitigate environmental damage from oil spills.As a result of these and other test findings, Region 6 of the Regional Response Team (made up of the U.S. Coast Guard, The Minerals Management Service, The Department of Environmental Quality, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and other state and federal agencies) had pre-approved the use of in situ burning of oil spills for offshore Louisiana and Texas. Other parts of the country and other countries are evaluating the use of in situ burning to combat oil spills. Now that the scientific community has weighed the environmental costs and benefits of in situ burning it is time to address the operational and procedural issues.     

Disposal of contaminated sediments/soils in MSW landfills: Need to consider the true cost

A disturbing trend among governmental agencies is the remediation of so‐called “nonhazardous” contaminated sediments/soils by deposition in minimum‐design Subtitle D municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills or landfills with equivalent design. This is done despite the fact that, in terms of protection of public health and environmental quality, the designation “nonhazardous” is misleading at best, and the fact that minimum‐design Subtitle D landfills as being allowed will not ensure protection of groundwater quality for as long as the buried wastes remain a threat. Although acknowledged in the regulatory documentation and exposed in the writings of a few in the scientific/engineering community, the environmental and public health issues that will inevitably be faced at minimum‐design Subtitle D landfills are underplayed, and even misrepresented, to the public. Discussion of relevant issues, as well as remarkable omissions, characterized the October 2004 United States Army Corps of Engineers (US ACE)/United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA)/Sediment Management Work Group (SMWG) conference,” Addressing Uncertainty and Managing Risk at Contaminated Sediment Sites.” This article addresses many of those neglected issues. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The State of the Practice: Characterizing and Remediating Contaminated Groundwater at Fractured Rock Sites

Characterizing and remediating contaminated groundwater in fractured rock are often the most difficult challenges facing environmental professionals. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), other U.S. federal agencies, and the Ontario Ministry of Environment recently supported a workshop, held an international conference, and developed a Web site to promote the understanding of the state of the practice. Field practitioners and researchers were surveyed and questioned concerning their experiences. This article summarizes the results of these efforts and provides an overview of the use of characterization methods and remediation technologies at fractured rock sites. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Incorporating ecology and ecological risk into long‐term stewardship on contaminated sites

The long‐term management of environmental contamination will be a major activity at many sites in the foreseeable future. While human health issues often drive decisions about cleanup, restoration, and long‐term stewardship, ecological considerations are also major driving forces and are of paramount importance to the public. Incorporation of ecological considerations into decisions about environmental protection, both short term and long term, requires (1) understanding public perceptions of ecological values, including aesthetics and existence values, (2) understanding contamination issues within a context of the structure and functioning of ecosystems, (3) developing bioindicators of ecological health (including human), (4) developing indicators of ecosystem functioning, and (5) developing and implementing a biomonitoring plan before, during, and after remediation so that adverse effects can be ascertained before they become irreversible. Both remediation/restoration and long‐term stewardship goals must be informed by public policy mandates that include public participation and healthy human and ecological systems. This article examines these issues as they relate to cost‐effective, long‐term protection of human and ecological health on contaminated lands. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

California's Low‐Threat LUFT Site Closure Policy: Looking Forward

California's regulatory agencies have historically been at the forefront of national efforts to address environmental concerns. In 2012, California's agency for addressing leaking underground fuel tanks (LUFTs) adopted a policy that identifies low‐threat conditions warranting closure of an LUFT case. That development clearly fulfills the role of risk management in the risk assessment–risk management paradigm inherent in environmental remediation. It also encourages identification of additional categories of sites and other circumstances that are “low threat” to develop similar guidance on closure to apply to those sites. ©2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Choosing remediation and waste management options at hazardous and radioactive waste sites

This article discusses a process for finding insights that will allow federal agencies and environmental professionals to more effectively manage contaminated sites. The process is built around what Etzioni (1968) called mixed‐scanning, that is, perpetually doing both comprehensive and detailed analyses and periodically re‐scanning for new circumstances that change the decision‐making environment. The article offers a checklist of 127 items, which is one part of the multiple‐stage scanning process. The checklist includes questions about technology; public, worker, and ecological health; economic cost and benefits; social impacts; and legal issues. While developed for a DOE high‐level radioactive waste application, the decision‐making framework and specific questions can be used for other large‐scale remediation and management projects. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Sustainable soil remediation by refrigerated condensation at sites with “high‐concentration” recalcitrant compounds and NAPL: Two case studies

Remediation of recalcitrant compounds at sites with high concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) or nonaqueous‐phase liquids (NAPLs) can present significant technical and financial (long‐term) risk for stakeholders. Until recently, however, sustainability has not been included as a significant factor to be considered in the feasibility and risk evaluation for remediation technologies. The authors present a framework for which sustainability can be incorporated into the remediation selection criteria focusing specifically on off‐gas treatment selection for soil vapor extraction (SVE) remediation technology. SVE is generally considered an old and standard approach to in situ remediation of soils at a contaminated site. The focus on off‐gas treatment technology selection in this article allows for more in‐depth analysis of the feasibility evaluation process and how sustainable practices might influence the process. SVE is more commonly employed for recovery of VOCs from soils than other technologies and generally employs granular activated carbon (GAC), catalytic, or thermal oxidation, or an emerging alternative technology known as cryogenic‐compression and condensation combined with regenerative adsorption (C3–Technology). Of particular challenge to the off‐gas treatment selection process is the potential variety of chemical constituents and concentrations changing over time. Guidance is available regarding selection of off‐gas treatment technology (Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence, 1996; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2006). However, there are common shortcomings of off‐gas treatment technology guidance and applications; practitioners have rarely considered sustainability and environmental impact of off‐gas treatment technology selection. This evaluation includes consideration of environmental sustainability in the selection of off‐gas treatment technologies and a region‐specific (Los Angeles, California) cost per pound and time of remediation comparisons between GAC, thermal oxidation, and C3–Technology. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Measuring the success of the federal government's Brownfields Program

In 1995, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) initiated the Brownfields Program to help local governments clean up and reuse hundreds of thousands of contaminated former factories and transportation and other commercial sites in cities and industrialized suburbs. By the end of 2002, the Brownfields Program had distributed grants of about $200,000 each to 436 local governments. Program grants have diffused through federal, state, regional, and local levels of government and private and not‐for profit organizations, and have reached into economically distressed neighborhoods. As expected, grant recipients disproportionately had a legacy of contaminated industrial sites and relatively large African American and/or Latino populations. But abandoned factories and environmental justice concerns do not completely explain the geographical distribution of recipients. Award winners tended to be larger cities with more capacity to compete for grants and were likely to be connected to sources of information about the grant opportunity and to decision makers. With a few exceptions, recipients consider the program to be highly successful at stimulating entrepreneurs to remediate and redevelop sites and, sometimes, surrounding neighborhoods. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Formerly utilized sites remedial action program “completed” sites: Lessons for long‐term stewardship

The Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP) covers inactive commercial, federal, and university facilities that once supported activities of the Manhattan Project or Atomic Energy Commission. Current responsibilities, established by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), are split between the U.S. Department of Energy (US DOE) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The MOU distinguishes between facilities remediated before 1997 (“completed” sites) and those where remediation remained to be completed at that time. This article evaluates activities conducted at completed sites with regard to considerations for long‐term stewardship, which is defined by the US DOE as all activities necessary to protect human health and the environment after remediation is considered complete. Experience with these FUSRAP sites provides “lessons learned” for the requirements of satisfactory long‐term stewardship. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Remediation and future land use: Incorporating reuse considerations into Superfund activities

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) is placing increased emphasis on the selection and implementation of remedies that accommodate the reasonably anticipated future use of contaminated land. These remedies result in the long‐term protection of human health and the environment. Postconstruction reuse of the land can significantly benefit communities in other ways as well. The launching of the Superfund Redevelopment Initiative in 1999 and the Return to Use Initiative in 2004 reflects an evolution in the US EPA's understanding of what actions can be taken to support the reuse of Superfund sites from discovery through long‐term stewardship. Through these initiatives, the US EPA has increased its understanding of site reuse and continues to explore and implement reuse assessment, reuse planning, and other tools effective in integrating reuse considerations with response activities throughout the remedial process. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Geochemical evaluation of metals in groundwater at long‐term monitoring sites and active remediation sites

At many sites, long‐term monitoring (LTM) programs include metals as chemicals of concern, although they may not be site‐related contaminants and their detected concentrations may be natural. At other sites, active remediation of organic contaminants in groundwater results in changes to local geochemical conditions that affect metal concentrations. Metals should be carefully considered at both types of sites, even if they are not primary contaminants of concern. Geochemical evaluation can be performed at LTM sites to determine if the monitored metals reflect naturally high background and, hence, can be removed from the analytical program. Geochemical evaluation can also be performed pre‐ and post‐treatment at active remediation sites to document the effects of organics remediation on metals and identify the processes controlling metal concentrations. Examples from both types of sites are presented in this article. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Transmissivity as a Primary Metric for LNAPL Recovery—Case Study Comparison of Short‐Term vs. Long‐Term Methods

This article presents a case study and comparative analysis of light nonaqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) transmissivity estimated using short‐ and long‐term test methods at an active petroleum refinery. LNAPL transmissivity (Tn) is a recognized direct indicator of LNAPL recoverability with increasing acceptance by regulatory agencies. Historical releases at a refinery resulted in widespread LNAPL accumulations across the site and, as such, a focused approach is being implemented to enhance recovery, shorten remedial timeframes, and prioritize areas for recovery. Groundwater pumping systems operate continuously to maintain hydraulic containment of impacts, along with 12 LNAPL recovery systems. Transmissivity has been established as a primary metric and management tool for LNAPL recovery at the refinery. In this case study, estimated transmissivity values from short‐term data (baildown testing) and long‐term data (LNAPL skimming operations) from the same locations are analyzed and compared. Overall results are presented with respect to variations in transmissivities between the short‐ and long‐term tests, significance of data collection and quality, and consideration factors affecting transmissivity including fluid properties, soil types, hydrogeology, saturation levels, tidal effects, migration rates, and receptor risks. Additionally, the application of transmissivity as a metric for monitoring progress toward LNAPL recovery endpoints as part of the LNAPL remediation program development is discussed. ©2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Management Systems Approach to Building Vapor Intrusion: A Facility Manager's Guide

Vapor intrusion (VI) has the potential to affect over 100,000 developed and undeveloped sites in the United States. Vapor intrusion occurs when the migration of volatile chemicals from the subsurface enters overlying buildings. A myriad of adverse health effects have been documented based on the inhalation of volatile chemicals from VI. At a time when most state and federal agencies have yet to set firm standards, the burden of responsibility is often placed on the facility manager to decide how to protect building occupants from volatile organic compounds potentially seeping into buildings. This article outlines a detailed step‐by‐step process for facility managers on how to begin a VI assessment and, when warranted, establish a site‐specific vapor intrusion management system for building occupant protection. This document should be used concurrently with current federal and state guidelines as it pertains to VI. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Travis Air Force Base: A greener cleanups case study

Travis Air Force Base, California, has accelerated the pace of remediation while reducing long‐term costs and cutting greenhouse gas production. This has been achieved through optimizing existing systems and processes, adopting greener cleanups best management practices, and testing and implementing innovative “green” technologies. By optimizing and replacing existing systems that used energy‐intensive infrastructure, and by promoting the use of innovative in situ technologies, the US Air Force (Air Force) led team comprised of the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, the US Army Corps of Engineers, the performance‐based contractor CH2M, and the regulatory agencies consisting of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the California Water Board, and the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, has reduced annual system operation and maintenance costs by over $200,000 per year, while reducing annual carbon dioxide production by approximately 930 tons per year. As a result of these actions, chlorinated solvent source areas have been reduced by over 99 percent in some cases, and the predicted cleanup time frame for multiple sites has been reduced by several decades. This article provides a case study for implementation of cost‐effective greener cleanup actions, and summarizes the approach taken by the Air Force led team to complete the greener cleanups self‐declaration process consistent with the ASTM International's E‐2893 Standard Guide for Greener Cleanups.     

Resilience: A New Consideration for Environmental Remediation in an Era of Climate Change

There has been a growing movement within the environmental industry to develop more sustainable approaches in environmental remediation. These have generally included carbon footprint analysis, life cycle assessment, and best management practices to reduce the overall net environmental, social, and economic impacts of investigation and remediation activities. One of the foundational reasons net environmental impacts are currently evaluated is to identify and, subsequently, reduce contributions to climate change, primarily greenhouse gas emissions. While this trend toward sustainability and reduction in impact to the global environment is both important and admirable, the approach to remediation design and long‐term planning now needs to evolve further to better incorporate climate resilience into sustainable remediation design and implementation: designing remediation solutions that account for the projected impacts of climate change, as well as have the capacity to adapt to changing conditions. As a global population, we are now beyond the point of being able to prevent climate change and instead need to plan for adapting to it. In remediation, the effects of climate change create both risks and opportunities which should be considered during remedial design and long‐term planning. Responsible parties may see the push for—and management of—these considerations through their internal corporate risk management. The authors of this paper propose a simple framework for climate adaptation and resilience evaluations and plan development for remediation projects. ©2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Approaches for assessing hazards and risks to workers and the public from contaminated land

Many public agencies and private entities are faced with assessing the risks to humans from contamination on their lands. The United States Department of Energy (US DOE) and Department of Defense are responsible for large holdings of contaminated land and face a long‐term and costly challenge to assure sustainable protectiveness. With increasing interest in the conversion of brownfields to productive uses, many former industrial properties must also be assessed to determine compatible future land uses. In the United States, many cleanup plans or actions are based on the Comprehensive Environmental Responsibility, Compensation, and Liability Act, which provides important but incomplete coverage of these issues, although many applications have tried to involve stakeholders at multiple steps. Where there is the potential for exposure to workers, the public, and the environment from either cleanup or leaving residual contamination in place, there is a need for a more comprehensive approach to evaluate and balance the present and future risk(s) from existing contamination, from remediation actions, as well as from postremediation residual contamination. This article focuses on the US DOE, the agency with the largest hazardous waste remediation task in the world. Presented is a framework extending from preliminary assessment, risk assessment and balancing, epidemiology, monitoring, communication, and stakeholder involvement useful for assessing risk to workers and site neighbors. Provided are examples of those who eat fish, meat, or fruit from contaminated habitats. The US DOE's contaminated sites are unique in a number of ways: (1) huge physical footprint size, (2) types of waste (mixed radiation/chemical), and (3) quantities of waste. Proposed future land uses provide goals for remediation, but since some contamination is of a type or magnitude that cannot be cleaned up with existing technology, this in turn constrains future land use options, requiring an iterative approach. The risk approaches must fit a range of future land uses and end‐states from leave‐in‐place to complete cleanup. This will include not only traditional risk methodologies, but also the assessment and surveillance necessary for stewards for long‐term monitoring of risk from historic and future exposure to maintain sustainable protectiveness. Because of the distinctiveness of DOE sites, application of the methodologies developed here to other waste site situations requires site‐specific evaluation © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Evaluation of the physical stability,groundwater seepage control,and faunal changes associated with an AquaBlok® sediment cap

Active sediment caps are being considered for addressing contaminated sediment areas in surface‐water bodies. A demonstration of an active cap designed to reduce advective transport of contaminants using AquaBlok® (active cap material) was initiated in a small study area of the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. The cap remained physically stable, demonstrated the ability to divert groundwater flow, and was recolonized with native organisms after 30 months of monitoring following cap placement. However, the long‐term performance of active caps associated with harsh environmental conditions, hydrogeological settings, and subsurface gas production needs to be further evaluated. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.