SUMMARY OF THE REMEDIATION TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPMENT FORUM
NAPL CLEANUP ALLIANCE
CONFERENCE CALL

11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
December 16, 2005

On Friday, December 16, 2005, the following members of the Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (NAPL) Cleanup Alliance met in a conference call:

Bob Maxey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Alliance Co-Chair)
Don Ficklen, Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence (AFCEE)
Greg Fletcher, Suncor
Rick Greiner, ConocoPhillips Company
James Higinbotham, ExxonMobil
Harley Hopkins, American Petroleum Institute (API)
Vic Kremesec, Atlantic Richfield Co., a BP Affiliated Company
Chris Pearson, The Retec Group, Inc.
Ellen Rubin, EPA
Brian Smith, TriHydro Corporation
Dick Woodward, Terracon

Also participating in the call were Carolyn Perroni of Environmental Management Support, Inc., and Christine Hartnett of ERG.


PARTNERING WITH THE INTERSTATE TECHNOLOGY AND REGULATORY COUNCIL (ITRC)

The NAPL Cleanup Alliance has been pursuing a partnership with the ITRC for several years. The effort was initiated in 2002, at which time the ITRC was invited to attend one of the Alliance's meetings. After attending the meeting, however, the ITRC indicated that it was not interested in establishing a partnership. Carolyn Perroni said that Ali Tavelli has approached the ITRC again, noting that Tavelli has contacted Mary Yelkin (one of ITRC's contractors) to discuss the possibility of (1) coordinating training events, and (2) getting ITRC to review the Alliance's products. These discussions are currently in their infancy.

Don Ficklen, who recently joined ITRC's Bioremediation of DNAPL Team, said that he will talk to his team members about reviewing the Alliance's products. Ellen Rubin said that she thinks it is unlikely that ITRC will agree to review the Alliance's products, noting that the ITRC is already overstretched when it comes to performing reviews. She did say, however, that it would be useful to communicate more closely with ITRC, especially since some of their members might be interested in participating in the Alliance's activities. Rubin also suggested exploring the idea of writing a proposal for the ITRC to fund.


THE NEXT ALLIANCE MEETING

The next NAPL Cleanup Alliance meeting will be held on February 7–8, 2006, at the Sheraton Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas. Ficklen said that he has identified speakers to talk about NAPL cleanup projects that have been conducted at Air Force sites, such as Williams Air Force Base and the Diego Garcia site. In addition, he said, Patrick Haas has agreed to speak about innovative LNAPL recovery approaches, and Doug Downey has agreed to talk about remediation strategies for LNAPL sites. Harley Hopkins asked whether the Air Force plans to present the paper that AFCEE published on LNAPL weathering. Ficklen said that Doug Downey might be able to present that paper and he agreed to discuss that possibility with Downey.

Other topics identified as potential agenda items included:


THE ALLIANCE'S MODULE 1 TRAINING

The Module 1 training was presented at many different locations across the United States in 2005, and several sessions are already scheduled for 2006 (including one that is scheduled to take place in Austin, Texas, on February 9, 2006). Maxey (who has collaborated with Mark Lyverse, Kremesec, and Mark Adamski to deliver the training) said that attendees have responded favorably to the Module 1 training. In addition to live presentations, Module 1 was recently presented as an Internet seminar. Rubin said that the seminar was the second largest meeting ever hosted on EPA's Clu-In Web site, noting that 286 people attended and several hundred people signed up on the waiting list. Those who attended represented 35 states, as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada, and China. Maxey said that he thought the seminar was a success, although he advised lengthening the seminar to 3 hours (from 2 hours) if it is repeated in the future.


THE ALLIANCE'S MODULE 2 TRAINING

Although Hopkins distributed a draft of the "Overview Version" of Module 2 a couple of months ago, he has only received comments from one person (Kremesec) so far. Maxey said that he had recently received some comments and would forward them to Hopkins soon; Ficklen said that he plans to send Hopkins comments within the next couple of weeks.


NAPL CASE STUDIES

Rubin reminded call participants that EPA is seeking case studies on NAPL cleanup projects. Jim Higinbotham said that he is working on two or three case studies, which he expects to deliver within the next few months. Fletcher said that Retec is developing a case study for a Suncor site, noting that he expects the case study to be completed within the next week. Rick Greiner said that he is trying to develop some case studies as well.


ACTION ITEMS