December 5, 2003
2:30 p.m.–3:30 p.m.

On December 5, 2003, the following members of the Remediation Technologies Development Forum’s (RTDF’s) Sediments Remediation Action Team, Ground Water–Surface Water Interactions Workgroup, met in a conference call:

Nancy Grosso, DuPont (Action Team Co-chair)
Bruce Duncan, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 10
Kelly Madalinski, EPA
Farukh Mohsen, Gannett Fleming
Bernie Zavala, EPA, Region 10

Christine Hartnett of ERG was also present.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Ground Water–Surface Water Interactions Workgroup is writing a document that summarizes issues identified during an October 2002 Sediments Remediation Action Team workshop. The Workgroup has met (via conference call) on several occasions since the workshop to discuss the document’s content. In mid-November 2003, the Workgroup distributed the most up-to-date version of the document to the entire Sediments Remediation Action Team for review and comment. This call was held to discuss the comments that were submitted and to determine how to proceed with the document.

DISCUSSION

Five people submitted comments on the document. After reviewing the comments, Nancy Grosso said, she believes that the following changes should be made to the document.

• Clarifying its purpose. Grosso said that some of the commenters mistook the document for a protocol or a guidance document. In an effort to avoid such misconceptions, Grosso will rewrite the introduction to make it clear that the document’s purpose is to: (1) record the topics discussed at the October 2002 workshop, (2) record discussions that occurred after the meeting, and (3) identify areas that require further exploration.
  
  
• Addressing issues on a watershed scale. Grosso said that she will modify the document to make it clear that, in some instances at least, risk should be managed on a watershed basis rather than a site-by-site basis.
  
  
• Clarifying the scenario that is being addressed in the document. Grosso said that she would make it clear that the Workgroup is focusing on situations in which contaminated ground water impacts clean surface-water sediments.
  
  
• Addressing temporal issues. Grosso said that the text will be modified to make it clear that it is important to account for temporal issues when planning sampling events and developing conceptual site models.
  
  
• Streamlining the text. Some commenters said that the document was repetitive. To fix this problem, Grosso advised having a technical editor streamline the document. She asked Chris Hartnett to find out whether ERG or Environmental Management Support, Inc., (EMS) could provide these services. If not, Grosso said, DuPont will ask its technical editor to perform this task.

Grosso said that some sections of the document are still missing. For example, she said, Bruce Duncan and Peter Adriaens still need to submit a table that summarizes available assessment tools. Duncan said that he does not actually think the table is necessary. After hearing Duncan’s reasons for saying this, the other call participants agreed that the table is unnecessary.

PATH FORWARD/ACTION ITEMS

The following were identified as steps that should be taken to move forward with the document:

• Grosso will incorporate the comments into the document.
  
  
• Grosso will make arrangements to have the document edited and streamlined. (Hartnett will let Grosso know whether ERG or EMS is available to provide such services. If not, DuPont will ask its technical editor to perform this task.)
  
  
• Grosso will send the edited version of the document to the Work Group members for review. (Ideally, the document will be ready for review by January 1, 2004.)
  
  
• Madalinski will write up a disclaimer for the document.
  
  
• Madalinski will make arrangements to have the final version of the document posted on the RTDF Web site.