SUMMARY OF THE REMEDIATION TECHNOLOGIES DEVELOPMENT FORUM
SEDIMENTS REMEDIATION ACTION TEAM
SEDIMENT DECISION SUBGROUP CONFERENCE CALL

11:00 p.m.-12:00 p.m.
June 13, 2002

On June 13, 2002, the following members of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum's (RTDF's) Sediments Remediation Action Team, Sediment Decision Subgroup, met in a conference call:

Nancy Grosso, DuPont Corporate Remediation (Action Team Co-chair)
Dennis Timberlake, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (Action Team Co-chair)
Tom Boyd, Naval Research Laboratory
Scott Cieniawski, EPA
David Constant, Louisiana State University
Tim Dekker, Limno-Tech, Inc.
Joe DePinto, Limno-Tech, Inc.
Scott Douglas, New Jersey Department of Transportation
Ken Finkelstein, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Gary Hinshaw, Environmental Assurance Monitoring, LLC
Michael Kravitz, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Steven Nadeau, Sediment Management Work Group
Greg Peterson, Limno-Tech, Inc.
Joseph Porrovecchio, Hart Crowser
Cornell Rosiu, EPA
Dick Schwer, DuPont Engineering
Bill Schew, Environmental Standards
Jennifer Sutter, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality
Brett Thomas, Chevron Texaco
John Wilkens, DuPont Central Research and Development
John Wolfe, Limno-Tech, Inc.
Kirk Ziegler, Quantitative Environmental Analysis

Christine Hartnett of Eastern Research Group, Inc., (ERG) was also present.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

A sediments management decision tree framework is being developed by a team of federal stakeholders (i.e., EPA, the Navy, the Army Corp of Engineers, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). The Sediment Decision Subgroup has agreed to provide input on the framework on behalf of the RTDF's Sediments Remediation Action Team. Toward this end, the Subgroup has already reviewed and submitted comments on the federal stakeholder team's Framework for Evaluating and Managing Contaminated Sediment Sites Flowchart #1.

UPDATE ON THE FEDERAL STAKEHOLDER TEAM'S JUNE 2002 MEETING

Grosso said that the federal stakeholder team met face to face in early June 2002. She and Dennis Timberlake, the RTDF Sediments Remediation Action Team co-chairs, were invited to the meeting. They learned about the following at the meeting:

• The framework's scope and organizational structure. Grosso said that the framework will consist of a flow diagram and will be supported by seven chapters and an executive summary. The chapters are: (1) introduction, (2) site screening, (3) site investigation, (4) alternative evaluation, (5) design and implementation, (6) monitoring and evaluation, and (7) summary. Grosso said that the text will be brief: the entire document is expected to be about 30 pages long. Readers will be directed to published guidance documents for additional information. (For example, Grosso said, the framework's chapter on alternative evaluation will make frequent reference to EPA's The Contaminated Aquatic Sediments Remedial Guidance. This document, which will be sent out for review in summer 2002, focuses primarily on remedial alternatives analysis.) Once the framework is finalized, it will be posted on EPA's Web site, along with links that direct readers to other relevant sources of information.



• Timetable. Grosso said that Mike Palermo, the federal stakeholder team's leader, is incorporating the comments he received on Framework for Evaluating and Managing Contaminated Sediment Sites Flowchart #1. Once the flowchart is revised, it will be forwarded to Grosso and Timberlake. Grosso also noted that the federal stakeholder team has identified authors for the framework's seven chapters. The authors have agreed to send Palermo text by the end of July. The text will be compiled and distributed for comment by the end of August 2002. Ideally, she said, the federal stakeholder team plans to finalize the framework by the end of the year.

Conference call participants asked whether the federal stakeholder team is taking the Sediment Decision Subgroup's recommendations seriously. Grosso said that she believed this was the case, but warned Subgroup members that they might not see their comments incorporated into the revised version of the framework's flowchart. This is because the federal stakeholder team has decided to discuss some of the Subgroup's recommended points in the supporting text rather than the actual flowchart. (One such point might be the importance of considering temporal and spatial trends when formulating a conceptual site model.)

ACTION ITEMS FOR THE SEDIMENT DECISION SUBGROUP

• Subgroup members agreed to identify references for the framework. They will send a list of these references to Timberlake (timberlake.dennis@epamail.epa.gov), and he will send them to Palermo. Timberlake and Grosso encouraged Subgroup members to submit these references as soon as possible. That way, the authors working on the framework's seven chapters will have as much information as possible before they start writing text.



• Grosso or Timberlake will send Subgroup members the revised framework flowchart as soon as Palermo distributes it.



• Grosso or Timberlake will send Subgroup members the framework's seven chapters as soon as Palermo distributes them. Subgroup members will be asked to provide comments on the text.