SUMMARY OF THE REMEDIATION TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPMENT FORUM
PERMEABLE REACTIVE BARRIERS ACTION TEAM
STEERING COMMITTEE CONFERENCE CALL

10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
October 13, 2000

On Friday, October 13, 2000, the following members of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum’s (RTDF’s) Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRB) Action Team Steering Committee met in a conference call:

Bob Puls, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Action Team Co-chair)
John Vidumsky, DuPont (Action Team Co-chair)
Nic Korte, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Liyuan Liang, ORNL
Scott Warner, Geomatrix Consultants, Inc.
Stephen White, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Dennis How (filling in for Chuck Reeter) and Christine Hartnett of Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG), also participated in the conference call.

PRB ACTION TEAM MEETING

Bob Puls asked whether Steering Committee members wanted to hold a PRB Action Team meeting in 2001. Call participants responded affirmatively, and said it would be preferable to hold the meeting in conjunction with another conference. Steering Committee members identified three meetings that might be appropriate partners for the 2001 PRB Action Team meeting:

• The April 2001 American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting. Scott Warner and John Vidumsky said that ACS has scheduled a meeting in San Diego, California, on April 1 through 5, 2001. (Information about the meeting can be found at http://www.acs.org/meetings/sandiego2001.) Vidumsky said that the agenda for the ACS meeting has not been drafted yet, but a preliminary brochure indicates that a variety of technologies will be discussed. In fact, he said, a session on PRBs is being offered. This statement prompted Puls to ask if there would be redundancy if the PRB Action Team met in conjunction with the ACS meeting. Call participants did not think this would be a problem, noting that the Action Team could focus on themes that are not being discussed at ACS and use a roundtable discussion format to give its own meeting a unique flavor. Conference call participants agreed that more information should be collected about the ACS meeting. Toward this end, Warner agreed to call the ACS meeting coordinator (Sue Henry) to find out whether she is amenable to having the PRB Action Team hold their meeting during the same week. Also, How will research field trip opportunities in the San Diego area.
  
  
• The June 2001 International Containment meeting. Liyuan Liang said that many European representatives will be attending the International Containment meeting that is scheduled to take place in Florida in June 2001. She agreed to gather additional information about the meeting and to ask Skip Chamberlain, one of the meeting’s organizers, whether he objected to holding an Action Team meeting in conjunction with the international conference.
  
  
• The 2001 RTDF Bioremediation Consortium meeting. Puls noted that the PRB Action Team had expressed interest in meeting with the RTDF’s Bioremediation Consortium. Puls said that it might be possible to pursue a joint meeting; he agreed to talk to Walter Kovalick about this idea.

Saying that PRB Action Team meetings typically focus on a couple of themes, Puls asked Steering Committee members to brainstorm on themes for the next meeting. The following topics were offered as suggestions: (1) design issues, (2) long-term performance, (3) developments in basic research, and (4) progress being made with reactive materials other than zero-valent iron.

FUTURE PRB ACTION TEAM ACTIVITIES

Puls asked call participants for suggestions on future Action Team activities. Two activities were suggested:

• Update an RTDF document. In September 1998, the PRB Action Team released a document entitled Permeable Reactive Barrier Technologies For Contaminant Remediation. Warner suggested updating this document. Steering Committee members agreed that this was a good idea. Puls said that it would be useful to incorporate new information on costs and long-term performance. Warner suggested adding information about activities overseas, noting that including such information might help to expand the document’s readership. Warner’s suggestion prompted Steering Committee members to discuss current activities in Europe. Puls said that much interest in PRB technology has been expressed in Germany and Denmark. For example, he said, in Germany, about $10 million has been allocated to evaluate PRBs at 10 different field sites over a three-year period. Liang noted that several European groups (e.g., the Environmental Treatment Zone Team) have formed to promote the use of barrier technologies. Puls said that volunteers will need to be identified to lead the effort to update the RTDF report. In addition, an outline will need to be generated. He asked Steering Committee members to think about the outline and send suggested topics to him or Vidumsky.
  
  
• Update case studies. Puls said that he would talk to Carolyn Perroni about identifying additional case studies for inclusion on the PRB Action Team’s Web page. He said that it would be useful to incorporate information on projects that are ongoing in Europe.

ACTION ITEMS

• How and Warner agreed to investigate the possibility of holding a PRB Action Team meeting in conjunction with the April 2001 ACS meeting. Warner will call the ACS meeting coordinator (Sue Henry) to find out whether she is amenable to the idea. How will research field trip opportunities in the San Diego area. How and Warner will e-mail their findings to the Steering Committee.
  
  
• Liang agreed to investigate the possibility of holding a PRB Action Team meeting in conjunction with the June 2001 International Containment meeting. She will talk to one of the meeting’s organizers (Skip Chamberlain) to determine whether he is amenable to the idea.
  
  
• Puls agreed to talk to Kovalick about the possibility of holding a PRB Action Team meeting in conjunction with the 2001 Bioremediation Consortium meeting.
  
  
• Call participants agreed that the Action Team’s September 1998 overview document should be updated. Puls asked all Steering Committee members to think about this proposal. Steering Committee members should also let Puls (puls.robert@epamail.epa.gov) or Vidumsky (John.E.Vidumsky@usa.dupont.com) know if they are interested in contributing to the document and what topics they propose writing about.
  
  
• Puls agreed to talk to Perroni about identifying additional case studies for inclusion on the PRB Action Team’s Web page.
  
  
• ERG agreed to set up the next conference call for October 31, 2000, between 11:30 and 1:00 Eastern Standard Time.