SUMMARY OF THE REMEDIATION TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPMENT FORUM
ACTION TEAM CO-CHAIRS CONFERENCE CALL

November 17, 1997
3:00 p.m.­4:30 p.m.

On November 17, 1997, Walter Kovalick, co-chair of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum (RTDF), met in a conference call with co-chairs from four of the seven RTDF action teams. The following co-chairs were present:

Lynn Wood (In Situ Flushing Action Team)
Mike Roulier (Lasagna™ Partnership)
Steve Rock (Phytoremediation of Organics Action Team)
Greg Sayles (Bioremediation Consortium)

Also present were Mason Hughes of Monsanto (sitting in for Lasagna™ Partnership Co-Chair Phil Brodsky); Lucinda Jackson of Chevron; Wendy Davis-Hoover of EPA NRMRL; Kathy Yager, Dawn Carroll, Carl Ma, and Kelly Madalinski of EPA TIO; Carolyn Perroni of Environmental Management Systems, Inc. (EMS); and Susan Brager Murphy and Ben Carlisle of Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG). Due to scheduling conflicts, the co-chairs of the Permeable Reactive Barriers, Sediments Remediation, and IINERT Soil-Metals action teams were not able to participate.

UPDATE OF RTDF PUBLICATIONS

Walter Kovalick announced that final versions of the RTDF overview fact sheet and a question-and-answer fact sheet have been completed. Over the next couple of weeks, these fact sheets will be printed, then distributed to all co-chairs, together with the latest issue of the RTDF Update progress report. All three publications will be posted on the Web (at www.rtdf.org). Kovalick said that fact sheets describing each individual action team will be finalized in the near future, and that these too will be posted on the Web.

MARKETING TO NEW MEMBER PROSPECTS

Kovalick described plans for recruiting new members into the RTDF actions teams. Prior to the RTDF annual meeting (October 15 and 16, in Evanston, Illinois), Kovalick and RTDF Co-Chair Robert Olexsey had sent letters to a number of industry associations in an attempt to stir up interest in the Forum. The response to these letters was disappointing, Kovalick said. Few companies within the targeted associations attended the annual meeting, partly because several of the associations were holding their own annual meetings during the same time period. As a next step, Kovalick plans to collapse the minutes from the Evanston meeting into an executive summary, which he will send out to prospective members, together with copies of the RTDF fact sheets and the RTDF Update. Kovalick welcomed other ideas for marketing the Forum to prospective members.

PROGRESS/INTEREST IN FORMING ELECTROKINETICS TEAM

Mason Hughes announced that he had received virtually no response to his suggestion that the RTDF form an electrokinetics action team. (Hughes had presented this idea during the annual meeting.) He said that there doesn't appear to be a large general interest in electrokinetics and that his company (Monsanto) is not interested in pushing the idea. Hughes thanked Kovalick for allowing him to raise the topic at the annual meeting. Kovalick replied that the topic might come up again, once the marketing/outreach effort is completed.

FEEDBACK ON RTDF ANNUAL MEETING

Kovalick asked the co-chairs for their thoughts about the annual meeting. Hughes said he felt the meeting was a success. He said that he had found it useful to speak with members of the other action teams and with people from state organizations, and that he had come up with some new ideas for working toward approval for the Lasagna™ project. He recommended holding a meeting once every 15 months or so, or whenever topics arise that require discussion.

Greg Sayles agreed that the meetings should continue at about that same frequency. He said that he had found it useful to speak with people in person and to find out what sort of work they were doing.

Steve Rock said that he had enjoyed the meeting, and that he had learned a great deal from speaking with other co-chairs about strategies for running the action teams. Lynn Wood agreed that it was useful to see how other action teams function.

TIO LIAISONS

Kovalick introduced staff members from the Technology Innovation Office (TIO) who will work as liaisons to the action teams. The following table presents the TIO staff members and the action teams/subgroups with which they will be working:

ACTION TEAM UPDATES

In Situ Flushing Action Team
Lynn Wood (EPA)

Wood said that the In Situ Flushing Action Team is scheduling a meeting for early January in Dallas, Texas, where the Team will attempt to organize into formal subgroups. Wood said that he is currently trying to identify individuals to act as subgroup leaders. The meeting will also include several reports concerning proposed field initiatives.

Lasagna™ Partnership
Mike Roulier (EPA)

Roulier said that the Lasagna™ Partnership is currently winterizing equipment. Graphite and iron supplies were delivered a month ago and have been placed under cover. Roulier said that the Partnership is waiting for travel money to become available from the Air Force, and he predicted that members will begin installing fractures sometime in January. Meanwhile, reconnaissance sampling should continue through December; of the last three locations sampled, one produced a hit, and two were clean. Roulier said that the Partnership needs one or two more hits on contaminated locations.

Phytoremediation of Organics Action Team
Steve Rock (EPA)

Among the three subgroups of the Phytoremediation of Organics Action Team, the Vegetative Cap Subgroup has been the most active, Rock said. Members of the Subgroup are very interested in forming a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) to study vegetative caps in the field. Rock said that field work may begin before a CRADA is formed because members are starting to propose caps for installation. The Subgroup has come up with four actual sites, and members from western states have suggested perhaps a dozen others.

Rock said that the TCE Subgroup continues its talks, trying to identify an appropriate project to take on. The TPH subgroup has not been active recently.

Bioremediation Consortium
Greg Sayles (EPA)

Sayles said that the Bioremediation Consortium is working to develop three technologies: soil bioventing, natural attenuation, and accelerated anaerobic treatment. He said that the field system for soil bioventing has been installed in the ground at Dover Air Force Base, in Delaware. The Consortium had been waiting for ground-water levels to drop at Dover; the levels have now dropped as far as they are likely to go, and the Consortium will start the system sometime in the next month or so. At Utah's Hill Air Force Base---the alternate site for bioventing---the Consortium has gathered soil samples; lab work has already begun.

Sayles said that natural attenuation work continues, with quarterly testing, and work also continues at the accelerated anaerobic test plot. Raw materials have been collected from Cape Canaveral---the Consortium's other alternate site---and future lab work will help to determine whether the site is appropriate for natural attenuation and accelerated anaerobic treatment.

NEXT CO-CHAIRS CONFERENCE CALL

ERG will set up the next co-chairs conference call for sometime during the week of February 2. Participants of this conference call agreed that the late afternoon time slot---3:00 to 4:30 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time)---is preferable to one earlier in the day.

ACTION ITEMS

• EMS/ERG will distribute to each co-chair 20-to-30 copies of his/her team-specific fact sheet, once it is finalized and printed, and a dozen copies of the overview and question-and-answer fact sheets.
• The RTDF will continue to follow up on prospective member contacts by mailing out an executive summary of the annual meeting, together with copies of fact sheets and the RTDF Update.
• EMS will provide TIO liaisons with contact information for their respective action team co-chairs. The liaisons will make contact, if they have not already done so.
• ERG will set up the next co-chairs conference call for 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on an afternoon during the week of February 2.