RTDF Co-Chairs Conference Call

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

May 28, 1997
12:30 p.m.2:00 p.m.

On May 28, 1997, Walter Kovalick and Robert Olexsey, co-chairs of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum (RTDF), met with the co-chairs of six of the seven RTDF action teams in a one-and-a-half-hour conference call. The following co-chairs were present:

Bill Berti (DuPont) and Jim Ryan (EPA/NRMR)
IINERT Soil-Metals Action Team
Dave Ellis (DuPont) and Greg Sayles (EPA/NRMRL)
Bioremediation Consortium
Dale Schultz (DuPont) and Bob Puls (EPA/NRMRL)
Permeable Reactive Barriers Action Team
Michael Roulier (EPA/NRMRL)
Lasagna^TM Partnership
Evelyn Drake (Exxon) and Steve Rock (EPA/NRMRL)
Phytoremediation of Organics Action Team
Dennis Timberlake (EPA/NRMRL)
Sediments Remediation Action Team

Also present were Mike Kosakowski and Annette Gatchett of EPA; Carolyn Perroni of Environmental Management Support, Inc.; and Susan Brager Murphy and Ben Carlisle of Eastern Research Group, Inc. Due to scheduling conflicts, neither co-chair of the In Situ Flushing Action Team was able to participate.

INTRODUCTION OF NEW ACTION TEAM CO-CHAIRS

Walter Kovalick opened the meeting by welcoming the newest RTDF co-chairs: Evelyn Drake and Steve Rock, who together will lead the new Phytoremediation of Organics Action Team, and Dennis Timberlake, who, since the last conference call, has agreed to co-chair the Sediments Remediation Action Team.

UPDATE ON ACTION TEAM ACTIVITIES

Each co-chair briefly described the latest activities of his or her action team:

IINERT Soil-Metals Action Team
Co-chair Bill Berti said that the IINERT Soil-Metals Action Team met from May 15 to 16 in Kansas City, Missouri. The meeting, which was attended by 28 people, began with a series of updates about work being done at the Joplin, Missouri, field study site:

Researchers from the University of Missouri described their study on the bioavailability and treatability of lead-contaminated soil.
Dr. Stan Casteel explained the animal-feeding study being conducted at the University's College of Veterinary Medicine.
Dr. Dave Mosby, of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and Dr. Sally Brown, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, described their soil treatment study.
Sarah Jones, of the University of Colorado, and EPA's Mark Doolan described a new initiative in which researchers are attempting to correlate bioavailability with in vitro bioaccessability.

Berti stated that many people at the Kansas City meeting were eagerly awaiting the results of Casteel's animal-feeding study, in which swine were fed treated soils from the Joplin site. Berti said that these results will show the extent to which treating soils with phosphorous reduces soil lead bioavailability. Co-chair Jim Ryan added that all of the analytical work on the swine-feeding study has been completed; at this point, the outcomes are tentative, but look promising.

Participants spent much of the Kansas City meeting in small work groups, Berti said, discussing three areas of research where Berti and Ryan feel special attention is needed: how to measure bioavailability and bioaccessibility; how to look at species of lead in soil; and how to implement in-place inactivation. Berti said that Carolyn Perroni compiled a list of action items which the work groups would like to see accomplished.

Bioremediation Consortium
Co-chair Greg Sayles said that the Bioremediation Consortium negotiated to have its own session at the Battelle Institute Conference in New Orleans. Over 300 people attended the session, which was a summary of the Consortium's activities at the Dover Air Force Base (AFB) in Delaware.

Sayles said that the Consortium is working to develop and demonstrate three different technologies at Dover AFB:

Attenuation of chlorinated solvents in ground water
Accelerated anaerobic treatment of ground water
Cometabolic bioventing of chlorinated solvents in the vadose zone

According to Sayles, the Consortium has installed (or is in the process of installing) the two ground-water projects; the bioventing project installation is almost complete. If all goes well, these projects will soon be underway.

The Consortium is also working to develop each of these three technologies at a second location. Sayles said that the Bioventing Group has found "a very nice site" at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The Group has already collected soil from the site for laboratory work, which is underway, and plans call for field work to begin in the spring of 1998. Meanwhile, an agreement is being negotiated with PRPs at the Strother Field Superfund Site in Kansas to initiate ground-water projects there. As the Consortium works to establish these second sites, Sayles said, it also is negotiating to upgrade and amend its Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with EPA, the Air Force, and the industrial companies with which it works.

Co-chair Dave Ellis provided an update on activities between RTDF and the ITRC. The RTDF document, "Principals and Practices for Evaluating Natural Attenuation of Chlorinated Solvents in Ground Water," has been endorsed by the ITRC's working group on bioremediation, Ellis said, and is now up for full ITRC endorsement. The draft document was reviewed by a number of states represented on the bioremediation subcommittee, whose comments and recommendations are being integrated into the next draft.

A Natural Attenuation Training Course, developed by RTDF in conjunction with the ITRC, was given a dry run in Austin, Texas, in March. The course is being revised on the basis of comments received in Austin, and should be sent to EPA for review within the next several weeks. As many as 350 people may attend a course session scheduled for Austin on November 18 to 19, Ellis said.

Permeable Reactive Barriers Action Team
Co-chair Bob Puls said that the Permeable Reactive Barriers Action Team had grown so large by the end of 1996 that the Team decided to form a Steering Committee. The Committee consists of those people--10 or 11 in all, representing a broad range of groups--who had been most active in contributing time and resources to the Team.

In February, the Steering Committee met for the first time, in conjunction with the International Containment Conference in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Discussion at the meeting centered on the question, What are the most pressing needs for research in this area? According to Puls, the Steering Committee concluded that the most pressing need is for research that studies the long-term performance of permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) in situ, especially with regard to the plugging of barriers either by precipitate buildup or biofouling. Puls said that the Action Team has assembled a small proposal to address those needs, and is hoping to do more research in cooperation with other interested parties, particularly the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy.

Members of the Steering Committee met on May 19 via a conference call, during which they finalized plans for the next general meeting of the entire Action Team--potentially 100 people or more. The Committee scheduled the meeting for September 18 to 19 in Norfolk, Virginia. Puls said that part of the meeting will be devoted to a field trip to a northeastern North Carolina field site where EPA is actively conducting research on reactive barriers.

Members of the Action Team are putting together an issues document on the current state of the science in PRB technology. RTDF may potentially review and endorse the document, which could be released by the end of July. Puls also noted that he, co-chair Dale Schultz, and Action Team member Scott Warner have provided comments to the ITRC Work Group that is composing a regulatory guidance document on PRB technology. The Group is finalizing the document and Puls hopes that the Permeable Reactive Barriers Action Team will continue to have significant input into the process.

Lasagna^TM Partnership
Co-chair Michael Roulier spoke about the Partnership's work utilizing the horizontal configuration of the Lasagna Process. Roulier said that two cells have been installed at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base, near Columbus, Ohio. One has a granular iron treatment zone, the other a biological treatment zone. The Partnership has struggled to increase the power output above 2 kilowatts at Rickenbacker, Roulier said. Beyond that level, overheating occurs, followed by loss of electrical contact. The Partnership has experimented with methods of keeping the installation cool to avoid resuspension of the graphite.

Another horizontal installation with granular iron treatment zones is being prepared at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, Roulier said. The Air Force funded last year's installation of utilities and an instrument jack at the site, and is now looking for further funding. Roulier hopes to have the installation on-line before cold weather strikes.

Schultz spoke briefly about activities at Paducah, Kentucky, where, he said, things are going well. For the past four months, the Partnership has been operating in Phase II-A at Paducah, and has experienced good removal. The Partnership is in the process of designing Phase II-B--a full-scale remediation of the area where the Phase I and Phase II-A tests occurred.

Phytoremediation of Organics Action Team
Co-chair Evelyn Drake said that the recently formed Phytoremediation of Organics Action Team held an introductory meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, before Christmas, and a conference call a couple of months later. The Action Team met again at the Battelle Institute Conference, with about 35 people in attendance. Drake said that Team members expressed a broad range of interests in three main areas of phytoremediation:

TCE and ground water
TPH/PAH and surface soils
Vegetative caps

Participants in the Action Team meeting discussed the current state of research, Drake said, and explored the types of work they could do together to identify possible areas for lab and field research. At the conclusion of the meeting, participants volunteered to be members of subgroups that will address the three main areas listed above, and all subgroups plan to hold conference calls within the next six weeks to define objectives. Co-chair Steve Rock stated that the first subgroup conference call will be held Friday, May 30.

According to Drake, one meeting participant pointed out that there are substantial cost savings in using vegetative caps versus other types of caps. Drake stated that vegetative caps could be 4- to 10-times less expensive.

The Action Team's next meeting will be held in conjunction with The Fourth International Petroleum Environmental Conference in San Antonio, Texas, in September.

Sediments Remediation Action Team
Dennis Timberlake said that he is searching for an industry partner with whom to co-chair the Sediments Remediation Action Team. The Team has not met since October, Timberlake explained, and even then attendance was low. He said that he tried to solicit interest in the Team at the recent National Conference on Management and Treatment of Contaminated Sediments, and would like to form a new core group of participants.

In Situ Flushing Action Team
Due to scheduling conflicts, neither In Situ co-chair was able to participate in the conference call. However, Schultz had spoken with Steve Shoemaker earlier in the day, and was able to relay the following update.

The In Situ Flushing Action Team met from May 8 to 9 at Hill Air Force Base, where members reviewed remedial work being done at the base. Turnout for the meeting was good, as was the discussion.

The Action Team has tentatively scheduled another meeting for sometime in September.

RTDF ANNUAL MEETING PLANS

Two possible dates for the RTDF Annual Meeting in Cincinnati were rejected because of scheduling conflicts (September 24 to 26 and October 8 to 10). Mike Kosakowski said that Environmental Management Support, Inc. (EMS) or Eastern Research Group, Inc. (ERG) will check on hotel availability for a three-day slot during the week of October 13.

RTDF DOCUMENT REVIEW/PUBLICATION PROCESS

Sayles summarized the proposed RTDF Product Review Policy, which was distributed to co-chairs before the conference call. Sayles said that a review policy has become necessary since the Bioremediation of Chlorinated Solvents Workgroup has begun preparing products for public distribution. During a previous conference call, it was decided that RTDF would adapt EPA's peer review policy for its own use, since products bearing the RTDF logo will need to meet EPA standards.

Sayles quickly ran through the peer review procedures, describing them as simple and not particularly burdensome. He said that co-chairs from both industry and EPA will need to take responsibility if the procedures are going to work. He requested that any co-chairs with comments or questions contact him directly.

RTDF WEB SITE MAINTENANCE

Kosakowski announced that EPA's Technology Innovation Office (TIO) and EMS will assume control over the RTDF homepage from the Ground-Water Remediation Technologies Analysis Center in Pittsburgh. EMS's Carolyn Perroni said that the transition should be seamless. Each Action Team will have a page on the Web site that will contain general information, membership lists, meeting minutes, and other materials. Over time, Perroni said, EMS will streamline the homepage, making it easier to use. For now, all prior documentation will be carried over to the new site, and EMS will consult with co-chairs about other materials to include. The company will distribute a fact sheet to co-chairs within the next two weeks, explaining the plans for reorganizing the homepage.

Perroni also stated that Action Team members will continue to have access to a password-accessible area within the Web site, where members can do administrative work. Ellis asked if EMS intends to change the passwords. Perroni stated that the passwords don't have to be changed, though the current ones may not provide adequate security. Kosakowski discussed the layout of this closed, "administrative" area of the Web site, and EPA's desire to allow public access to as much information as possible.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Kosakowski said that two new RTDF publications were recently sent out via e-mail to the co-chairs:

RTDF Update--Ellis, Perroni, and Kosakowski discussed problems that arose in receiving the RTDF Update via e-mail. In the future, Perroni said, EMS will fax hard copies of the fact sheets or newsletters to co-chairs, or will embed the documents in e-mail files, rather than sending them as attachments. The Update will also be posted on the RTDF Web site, and hard copies will be mailed to all people on the RTDF mailing list.
Questions and Answers Fact Sheet--Perroni said that the fact sheet has been mailed out, and that a copy will be posted on the RTDF Web site.

NEXT CO-CHAIRS CONFERENCE CALL

It was agreed that the next co-chairs conference call will take place on Thursday, July 17, from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. The agenda for the conference call includes: confirming a date for the RTDF Annual Meeting, setting an agenda for the Annual Meeting, and discussing issues concerning the RTDF homepage.

Evelyn Drake commented that the current frequency of conference calls--one call every six to eight weeks--seems unnecessarily high.

ACTION ITEMS

The co-chairs concluded by confirming the following action items:

EMS/ERG will check on hotel availability in Cincinnati for a three-day slot during the week of October 13--the tentative date for the RTDF Annual Meeting.
EMS will mail to the co-chairs a proposal for Web site management.
The next co-chairs conference call will take place on Thursday, July 17, from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. The agenda for the conference call includes: confirming a date for the RTDF Annual Meeting, setting an agenda for the Annual Meeting, and discussing issues concerning the RTDF homepage.