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Published: 1996

Total Pages: 9

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A large number of defense-related sites are contaminated with elevated levels of secondary explosives. Levels of contamination range from barely detectable to levels above 10% that need special handling due to the detonation potential. Characterization of explosives-contaminated sites is particularly difficult due to the very heterogeneous distribution of contamination in the environment and within samples. To improve site characterization, several options exist including collecting more samples, providing on-site analytical data to help direct the investigation, compositing samples, improving homogenization of samples, and extracting larger samples. On-site analytical methods are essential to more economical and improved characterization. On-site methods might suffer in terms of precision and accuracy, but this is more than offset by the increased number of samples that can be run. While verification using a standard analytical procedure should be part of any quality assurance program, reducing the number of samples analyzed by the more expensive methods can result in significantly reduced costs. Often 70 to 90% of the soil samples analyzed during an explosives site investigation do not contain detectable levels of contamination. Two basic types of on-site analytical methods are in wide use for explosives in soil, calorimetric and immunoassay. Calorimetric methods generally detect broad classes of compounds such as nitroaromatics or nitramines, while immunoassay methods are more compound specific. Since TNT or RDX is usually present in explosive-contaminated soils, the use of procedures designed to detect only these or similar compounds can be very effective.