Summary of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum

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

2:00 p.m.–3:00 p.m.
August 10, 2004

On Tuesday, August 10, 2004, the following members of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum’s Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRB) Action Team’s 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)
Tom Krug, GeoSyntec
Chuck Reeter, U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Service Center
Michelle Thomson, URS Corporation

Also participating in the call was Christine Hartnett from ERG.

NEXT PRB ACTION TEAM MEETING

Call participants agreed to hold the next PRB Action Team meeting in conjunction with the Interstate Regulatory Technology Council (ITRC) conference that is scheduled to take place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the last week of October 2004. They agreed that the PRB Action Team meeting should be 1 to 1½ days in length and they proposed holding it on October 26 (starting at noon) and October 27 (possibly lasting all day). In addition, call participants suggested holding a brief PRB Steering Committee meeting on the morning of October 26, 2004. (The dates and times are all tentative at this point, but they will be finalized as soon as possible.)

Call participants also talked about the meeting agenda and identified the following as topical areas:

Zero-valent iron (ZVI) source treatment/nano-iron applications. John Vidumsky advised exploring these topics during the meeting, noting that the RTDF PRB Action Team recently broadened its mission to encompass them. He agreed to take responsibility for finding speakers for this session.
Alternative reactive media. Bob Puls advised presenting information about remediation projects that combine iron treatment with bioremediation. Tom Krug advised including a paper that discusses a biomulch treatment wall. Michelle Thomson recommended soliciting papers on alternative metals (i.e., not iron) that have been used in barrier walls. Krug agreed to chair this session and to take responsibility for finding speakers.
Other field or laboratory studies. Call participants agreed that this session would serve as a “catch-all” for papers that do not fit into the previous two sessions. For example, during this session, information could be provided about: (1) innovative delivery systems that have been deployed in the field, (2) DuPont’s column studies, and (3) recent sampling efforts at the Moffett Field site. Call participants noted that Bob Gillham would be a good chairperson for this session.

Given that the meeting is only about 10 weeks away, Puls advised using an aggressive two-pronged approach to solicit speakers: (1) contact potential speakers directly, and (2) include a solicitation for papers in the meeting invitation.

ACTION ITEMS

Call participants identified the following action items:

ERG will contact Matt Turner to ask for a contact name at ITRC. Once a name is provided, ERG will work with that person to reserve meeting space and sleeping rooms for the PRB Action Team meeting.
Puls will ask Bob Gillham to chair the “Other Field or Laboratory Studies” session of the meeting.
The meeting session chairs (Vidumsky, Krug, and hopefully Gillham) will start identifying speakers for the meeting.
ERG will send past meeting invitations to Puls, who will use them as examples to develop a new invitation for the October 2004 meeting. Puls agreed to send a draft version of the invitation to the PRB Steering Committee for review.
Chuck Reeter will obtain an attendee list from a recent Battelle conference and forward it to ERG.
Once the invitation has been completed, ERG will distribute it to the entire RTDF PRB Action Team mailing list. In addition, ERG will send the invitation to those who attended the Battelle conference (mentioned in the previous bullet). ERG will also make arrangements to have the meeting advertised on TechDirect.
ERG will set up the next PRB Steering Committee conference call for August 24, 2004, between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). Puls said that he hopes the meeting invitations will be sent out prior to the call. If not, the invitation will be finalized during the call so that it can be distributed shortly thereafter.