V.3 ... consists of individual chapters that describe 1) the conceptual background for radionuclides, including tritium, radon, strontium, technetium, uranium, iodine, radium, thorium, cesium, plutonium-americium and 2) data requirements to be met during site characterization.
In the past decade, officials responsible for clean-up of contaminated groundwater have increasingly turned to natural attenuation-essentially allowing naturally occurring processes to reduce the toxic potential of contaminants-versus engineered solutions. This saves both money and headaches. To the people in surrounding communities, though, it can appear that clean-up officials are simply walking away from contaminated sites. When is natural attenuation the appropriate approach to a clean-up? This book presents the consensus of a diverse committee, informed by the views of researchers, regulators, and community activists. The committee reviews the likely effectiveness of natural attenuation with different classes of contaminants-and describes how to evaluate the "footprints" of natural attenuation at a site to determine whether natural processes will provide adequate clean-up. Included are recommendations for regulatory change. The committee emphasizes the importance of the public's belief and attitudes toward remediation and provides guidance on involving community stakeholders throughout the clean-up process. The book explores how contamination occurs, explaining concepts and terms, and includes case studies from the Hanford nuclear site, military bases, as well as other sites. It provides historical background and important data on clean-up processes and goes on to offer critical reviews of 14 published protocols for evaluating natural attenuation.
This book contains both practical and theoretical aspects of groundwater resources relating to geochemistry. Focusing on recent research in groundwater resources, this book helps readers to understand the hydrogeochemistry of groundwater resources. Dealing primarily with the sources of ions in groundwater, the book describes geogenic and anthropogenic input of ions into water. Different organic, inorganic and emerging contamination and salinity problems are described, along with pollution-related issues affecting groundwater. New trends in groundwater contamination remediation measures are included, which will be particularly useful to researchers working in the field of water conservation. The book also contains diverse groundwater modelling examples, enabling a better understanding of water-related issues and their management. Groundwater Geochemistry: Pollution and Remediation offers the reader: An understanding of the quantitative and qualitative challenges of groundwater resources An introduction to the environmental geochemistry of groundwater resources A survey of groundwater pollution-related issues Recent trends in groundwater conservation and remediation Mathematical and statistical modeling related to groundwater resources Students, lecturers and researchers working in the fields of hydrogeochemistry, water pollution and groundwater will find Groundwater Geochemistry an essential companion.
Advances in Remediation Techniques for Polluted Soils and Groundwater focuses on the thematic areas for assessment, mitigation, and management of polluted sites. This book covers advances in modelling approaches, including Machine Learning (ML)/ Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications; GIS and remote sensing; sensors; impacts of climate change on geogenic contaminants; and socio-economic impacts in the poor rural and urban areas, which are lacking in a more comprehensive manner in the previous titles. This book encompasses updated information as well as future directions for researchers working in the field of management and remediation of polluted sites. - Introduces fate and transport of multi-pollutants under varying subsurface conditions - Details underlying mechanisms of biodegradation and biodetoxification of geogenic, industrial and emerging pollutants - Presents recent advances and challenges in assessment, water quality modeling, uncertainty, and water supply management - Provides authoritative contributions on the diverse aspects of management and remediation from leading experts around the world
At hundreds of thousands of commercial, industrial, and military sites across the country, subsurface materials including groundwater are contaminated with chemical waste. The last decade has seen growing interest in using aggressive source remediation technologies to remove contaminants from the subsurface, but there is limited understanding of (1) the effectiveness of these technologies and (2) the overall effect of mass removal on groundwater quality. This report reviews the suite of technologies available for source remediation and their ability to reach a variety of cleanup goals, from meeting regulatory standards for groundwater to reducing costs. The report proposes elements of a protocol for accomplishing source remediation that should enable project managers to decide whether and how to pursue source remediation at their sites.
Across the United States, thousands of hazardous waste sites are contaminated with chemicals that prevent the underlying groundwater from meeting drinking water standards. These include Superfund sites and other facilities that handle and dispose of hazardous waste, active and inactive dry cleaners, and leaking underground storage tanks; many are at federal facilities such as military installations. While many sites have been closed over the past 30 years through cleanup programs run by the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. EPA, and other state and federal agencies, the remaining caseload is much more difficult to address because the nature of the contamination and subsurface conditions make it difficult to achieve drinking water standards in the affected groundwater. Alternatives for Managing the Nation's Complex Contaminated Groundwater Sites estimates that at least 126,000 sites across the U.S. still have contaminated groundwater, and their closure is expected to cost at least $110 billion to $127 billion. About 10 percent of these sites are considered "complex," meaning restoration is unlikely to be achieved in the next 50 to 100 years due to technological limitations. At sites where contaminant concentrations have plateaued at levels above cleanup goals despite active efforts, the report recommends evaluating whether the sites should transition to long-term management, where risks would be monitored and harmful exposures prevented, but at reduced costs.
This book presents a comprehensive, up-to-date review of technologies for cleaning up contaminants in groundwater and soil. It provides a special focus on three classes of contaminants that have proven very difficult to treat once released to the subsurface: metals, radionuclides, and dense nonaqueous-phase liquids such as chlorinated solvents. Groundwater and Soil Cleanup was commissioned by the Department of Energy (DOE) as part of its program to clean up contamination in the nuclear weapons production complex. In addition to a review of remediation technologies, the book describes new trends in regulation of contaminated sites and assesses DOE's program for developing new subsurface cleanup technologies.
Fractured rock is the host or foundation for innumerable engineered structures related to energy, water, waste, and transportation. Characterizing, modeling, and monitoring fractured rock sites is critical to the functioning of those infrastructure, as well as to optimizing resource recovery and contaminant management. Characterization, Modeling, Monitoring, and Remediation of Fractured Rock examines the state of practice and state of art in the characterization of fractured rock and the chemical and biological processes related to subsurface contaminant fate and transport. This report examines new developments, knowledge, and approaches to engineering at fractured rock sites since the publication of the 1996 National Research Council report Rock Fractures and Fluid Flow: Contemporary Understanding and Fluid Flow. Fundamental understanding of the physical nature of fractured rock has changed little since 1996, but many new characterization tools have been developed, and there is now greater appreciation for the importance of chemical and biological processes that can occur in the fractured rock environment. The findings of Characterization, Modeling, Monitoring, and Remediation of Fractured Rock can be applied to all types of engineered infrastructure, but especially to engineered repositories for buried or stored waste and to fractured rock sites that have been contaminated as a result of past disposal or other practices. The recommendations of this report are intended to help the practitioner, researcher, and decision maker take a more interdisciplinary approach to engineering in the fractured rock environment. This report describes how existing tools-some only recently developed-can be used to increase the accuracy and reliability of engineering design and management given the interacting forces of nature. With an interdisciplinary approach, it is possible to conceptualize and model the fractured rock environment with acceptable levels of uncertainty and reliability, and to design systems that maximize remediation and long-term performance. Better scientific understanding could inform regulations, policies, and implementation guidelines related to infrastructure development and operations. The recommendations for research and applications to enhance practice of this book make it a valuable resource for students and practitioners in this field.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, our nation began to grapple with the legacy of past disposal practices for toxic chemicals. With the passage in 1980 of the Comprehensive Envir- mental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Sup- fund, it became the law of the land to remediate these sites. The U. S. Department of Defense (DoD), the nation’s largest industrial organization, also recognized that it too had a legacy of contaminated sites. Historic operations at Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps facilities, ranges, manufacturing sites, shipyards, and depots had resulted in widespread contamination of soil, groundwater, and sediment. While Superfund began in 1980 to focus on remediation of heavily contaminated sites largely abandoned or neglected by the private sector, the DoD had already initiated its Installation Restoration Program in the mid-1970s. In 1984, the DoD began the Defense Environmental Restoration Program (DERP) for contaminated site assessment and remediation. Two years later, the U. S. Congress codified the DERP and directed the Secretary of Defense to carry out a concurrent program of research, development, and demonstration of innovative remediation technologies. As chronicled in the 1994 National Research Council report, “Ranking Hazardous-Waste Sites for Remedial Action,” our early estimates on the cost and suitability of existing techn- ogies for cleaning up contaminated sites were wildly optimistic. Original estimates, in 1980, projected an average Superfund cleanup cost of a mere $3.
This volume is part of the series on "Chemical Thermodynamics", published under the aegis of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, and updates and expands the thermodynamic data on inorganic compounds and complexes of uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium and technetium contained in the previous volumes of the series. A review team, composed of seven internationally recognized experts, has critically reviewed during five years all the scientific literature containing chemical thermodynamic information for the above mentioned systems that has appeared since the publication of the earlier volumes. The results of this critical review carried out following the Guidelines of the OECD NEA Thermochemical Database Project have been documented in the present volume, which contains new tables of selected values for formation and reaction thermodynamical properties and an extensive bibliography.