Sustainable Remediation –Where is it Going; A View from the Trenches
Richard Raymond, Terra Systems, Wilmington, DE          
Michael D. Lee, Terra Systems, Wilmington, DE
W. Michael Free, Terra Systems, Wilmington, DE

Incorporating Sustainability into the Air Force Remediation Program
Erica Becvar, AFCEE Technology Transfer, Brooks City-Base, TX           
Doug Ruppel, AECOM, Brooks City-Base, TX
Charles Newell, GSI Environmental, Houston, TX
Tiffany Swann, GSI Environmental, Houston, TX
Doug Downey, CH2M Hill, Englewood, CO

A Multi-Criteria Approach for Evaluating Sustainable Remediation Alternatives
Timothy J. Havranek, ENTRIX, Inc., New Castle, PA       
Douglas J. MacNair, ENTRIX, Inc., Raleigh, NC

Wind Energy and Remediation:  A Case Study
Rose Forbes, Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, Otis ANG Base, MA

Improving the Sustainability of Source Removal
Ralph S. Baker, TerraTherm, Inc., Fitchburg, MA
Uwe Hiester, reconsite - TTI GmbH, Fellbach, Germany

Sustainable Considerations for Sediment Remediation
John Ryan, AECOM Environment, Lopez Island, WA
Emese Hadnagy, AECOM Environment, Westford, MA     
Erika Germiniani, AECOM Environment, Milan, Italy
Merv Coover, AECOM Environment, Seattle, WA
Anne Fitzpatrick, AECOM Environment, Seattle, WA

Sustainable Environmental Remediation:  A Case Study of Contaminated Groundwater in Wichita, Kansas
Roger Olsen, Camp Dresser & McKee, Denver, CO
Shawn Maloney, City of Wichita - Department of Environmental Services, Wichita, KS
Paul Anderson, Camp Dresser & McKee, Kansas City, MO 

Sustainable Remediation –Where is it Going; A View from the Trenches

Richard L. Raymond, Jr., Terra Systems, Inc. 1035 Philadelphia Pike, Wilmington, DE  19809, USA, Tel: 302-798-9553, Fax: 302-798-9554, Email: draymond@terrasystems.net
Michael D. Lee, Ph.D., Terra Systems, Inc. 1035 Philadelphia Pike, Wilmington, DE  19809, USA, Tel: 302-798-9553, Fax: 302-798-9554, Email: mlee@terrasystems.net
W. Michael Free, Terra Systems, Inc. 1035 Philadelphia Pike, Wilmington, DE  19809, USA, Tel: 302-798-9553, Fax: 302-798-9554, Email: mfree@terrasystems.net

Sustainable remediation is broadly described as a remedy or combination of remedies whose net impact on human health and the environment is minimized through the judicious use of limited resources.  A survey conducted by the Sustainable Remediation Forum (SuRF) indicated that there is considerable debate among stakeholders regarding what is sustainable and what is judicious.  However, sustainability concepts are garnering the interest of remediation stakeholders who are willing to identify and evaluate net benefit solutions to complex remediation challenges on a project-by-project basis. 

In the U.S., the selection of remediation technologies has historically been driven by cost, efficacy, and regulatory acceptance.  However, stakeholders have learned that these remediation drivers do not necessarily result in a clean or closed site on a timely basis and, depending on the perspective of the stakeholder, could represent a net environmental loss to the larger community.  Accordingly, stakeholders are learning that the selection of remediation technologies should also evaluate the probability with which these and future projects will have a net environmental benefit. 

Generally, the stakeholders in the remediation process belong to one of four groups: site owners, regulatory entities, the public, and industry service providers.  The boundaries between these groups are at times indistinct; however, each is represented in one form or another as a stakeholder in the process.

Ideally, a thorough evaluation process will result in a sustainable approach and negotiated agreement that incorporates site conditions; local, state, and/or federal requirements; responsible parties; and the community stakeholders.

This presentation will focus on the perspective of industry service providers and the tools that they can use to assist other stakeholders in coming to a mutually beneficial, project-specific definition of sustainability.

Incorporating Sustainability into the Air Force Remediation Program

Erica Becvar, AFCEE/TDV, 3300 Sidney Brooks, Brooks City-Base, TX 78235, Tel: 210-536-4314, 210-536-2239, Email: erica.becvar@brooks.af.mil
Doug Ruppel, AECOM, 8005 Outer Circle, Brooks City-Base, TX 78235, Tel: 210-253-7510, Email: douglas.ruppel@aecom.com
Charles Newell, GSI Environmental, 2211 Norfolk, Suite 1000 Houston, TX 77098, Tel: 713-522-6300, Fax: 713-522-8010, Email: cjnewell@gsi-net.com
Tiffany Swann, GSI Environmental, 2211 Norfolk, Suite 1000 Houston, TX 77098, Tel: 713-522-6300, Fax: 713-522-8010, Email: tswann@gsi-net.com
Doug Downey, CH2M Hill, 9193 South Jamaica Street Englewood, CO  80112, Tel: 303-674-6547, Fax: 720-286-8514, Email: doug.downey@ch2m.com

The historical approach to remediation of contaminated sites has not fully considered sustainability concepts.  Although green remediation technologies have been applied, sustainability was not one of the forefront considerations. To reduce the environmental footprint of the Air Force environmental restoration program and to meet the challenge of Executive Order 13423, the Air Force developed the Sustainable Remediation Tool (SRT).  The SRT is designed to assist environmental professionals in incorporating sustainability concepts into the remediation decision-making process. It applies to both future remediation implementation as well as optimization of existing remediation and monitoring systems. The SRT also works well in the context of such approaches as performance-based management (PBM), remedial process optimization (RPO), and remediation risk management (RRM).  The SRT provides two levels (tiers) of detail for a technology assessment.  Tier 1 inputs are designed for a quick assessment and uses many defaults and rules of thumb. Tier 2 inputs require more time and more detailed input from the user but are more specific to the site and technology being assessed.  The SRT then presents output for sustainability metrics such as implementation costs, greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, resource service, and worker safety.  Unique to the SRT is a stakeholder roundtable allowing  sustainability metrics to be weighted differently, producing alternative costs and/or impacts.  The current version of the SRT estimates sustainability metrics for four specific technologies (excavation, soil vapor extraction, pump and treat, and enhanced bioremediation). Additional technology modules are being incorporated.  The Air Force is implementing the SRT through its Environmental Restoration Program – Optimization (ERP-O) initiative but is being coordinated with many federal and state agencies and is free and available to the public starting.  This presentation will cover the primary drivers for the development of the SRT, how it can be used, how it is being implemented, and conclude with a summary of case studies of the tool’s application.

A Multi-Criteria Approach for Evaluating Sustainable Remediation Alternatives

Timothy J. Havranek, MBA, PMP, ENTRIX, Inc. 1726 Hart Street, New Castle, PA 16101, Tel: 724-598-3926, Fax: 724-598-3927, Email: thavranek@entrix.com
Douglas J. MacNair, Ph.D., ENTRIX, Inc. 3141 John Humphries Wynd, Suite 265, Raleigh, NC 27612, Tel: 919-239-8901, Fax: 919-239-8900, Email: DMacNair@entrix.com

In April 2008, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) published its Green Remediation Technology Primer (Primer) with the key message that: “decision makers should consider all environmental effects of clean-up actions and a final solution should include options to maximize net environmental benefits.”  This primer launched the USEPA’s Green Remediation Initiative.  The primary goal of green remediation is to integrate sustainable practices into decision making, thereby increasing the environmental, economic, and social benefits of cleanup. 

Methods for evaluating the extent to which remedial alternatives maximize net environmental benefits will be an important component of the Initiative’s success. This presentation provides a case study of one approach for analyzing green remediation alternatives: Net Environmental and Community Benefit Analysis (NECBA).  NECBA is a form of multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) that provides a transparent, systematic process for evaluating alternative strategies that have multiple costs and benefits (environmental, economic, and social) that may not be easy to quantify. The process for determining evaluation criteria and their relative importance will be presented. In addition, alignment of the NECBA criteria with the nine CERCLA criteria will be discussed. 

Wind Energy and Remediation:  A Case Study

Rose Forbes, P.E., M.S. Chemical Engineering, Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment, 322 East Inner Road, Otis ANG Base, MA 02542, Tel:  508-968-4670 x 5613, Fax:  508-968-4476, Email:  rose.forbes@brooks.af.mil

With increasing energy costs and the need to operate in more sustainable ways, the environmental remediation sector is now integrating more energy efficient and sustainable solutions.  The Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment (AFCEE) has applied this approach to groundwater remediation systems at the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR).

This case study presents a more sustainable approach to remediation at the MMR through the use of renewable energy, in the form of a 1500 kW wind turbine.  Power costs for operating the treatment systems, which process up to 16 million gallons per day, amounted to approximately $2.0 million in 2007.  The wind turbine is anticipated to reduce the program’s electricity costs and offset air emissions, generated indirectly through the use of electricity from fossil fuel based power plants, by approximately 30%.  Based on a range of utility cost projections and an estimate of the turbine’s output, the $4.6 million project is anticipated to have a payback period between six and eight years.

The presentation will discuss energy conservation initiatives as well as the planning, design, and acquisition process for construction of a utility class wind turbine.  The wind turbine project is jointly funded with Air Force and Army Environmental Restoration Account funds and resulted from program-wide optimizations in other areas of the restoration efforts.  AFCEE/MMR engaged dozens of stakeholders and issued a draft Environmental Assessment for public comment and subsequent Finding of No Significant Impact during the planning process.  In addition, AFCEE/MMR issued contracts for the wind turbine planning, design, Title II oversight and construction.  The current schedule, which is dependent on turbine delivery date, indicates a fall 2009 completion and start-up.

Improving the Sustainability of Source Removal 

Ralph S. Baker, TerraTherm, Inc., 10 Stevens Road, Fitchburg, MA 01420, Tel: 978-343-0300, Fax: 978-343-2727
Uwe Hiester, reconsite - TTI GmbH, Auberlenstrasse 13, D-70376 Fellbach, Germany, Tel: 49-(0)162-912 3763, Email: uwe.hiester@reconsite.com

There is a growing recognition of the importance of making hazardous waste remediation more sustainable, and thereby minimizing its economic, environmental and social impacts to the extent possible.  The attention of sustainable remediation practitioners has thus far been focused on remediation of lower concentration targets, such as dissolved plumes, where reliance on green techniques that mimic naturally occurring processes such as bioremediation may be particularly effective.  There has been less attention, however, on source removal, such as of DNAPL source areas.  At sites where achievement of stringent remedial goals is necessary in a short timeframe, aggressive source remediation is required.  Among the various methods of “aggressive” (but efficient) source remediation / removal that are currently available, many require excavation, which is highly energy-intensive (especially if a refill with clean soil is required) and tends to strongly impact neighborhoods. 

In situ technologies such as soil vapor extraction (SVE), multiphase extraction and in situ chemical oxidation are less disruptive than excavation but frequently produce diminishing returns due to subsurface mass transport limitations.  Hiester and co-workers (2003, 2005) conducted Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of four sites in Germany where ‘cold’ SVE was later followed by Thermally Enhanced SVE (TESVE).  At three of the TESVE sites the heat source was injected steam, while at the fourth conductive heating was utilized.  Even though the site specific conditions such as volume, contaminants and depth below subsurface differed very much from each other, each of the LCAs calculated for those site-specific conditions showed that ‘cold’ SVE consumed much more energy, produced more waste and generated more greenhouse gases than TESVE, while often failing to remove sufficient contaminant mass to lead to site closure.  TESVE and other methods of In Situ Thermal Remediation (ISTR), by contrast, offer the reduced impacts of an in situ remedy combined with the ability to achieve predictable, timely site closure.  ISTR has restored impaired properties enabling beneficial reuse, even to residential standards in a number of cases.  It also has produced results consistent with restoration of groundwater, an increasingly scarce resource.  An effective robust source removal technology such as ISTR that minimizes environmental, economic and social impacts on a life-cycle basis can thus turn out to be the most sustainable source removal solution for such sites.

References:
Hiester, U., V. Schrenk and T. Weiss.  2003. “Environmental Balancing of ‘Cold’ SVE and Thermally Enhanced SVE – Practical Support for Decision Makers.”  Proceedings of ConSoil 2003.  Ghent, Belgium.
Hiester, U. and V. Schrenk.  2005.  “In Situ Thermal Remediation:  ecological and economic advantages of the TUBA and THERIS methods.”  Proceedings of ConSoil 2005.  Bordeaux, France.
LfU Baden-Württemberg. 1999. Umweltbilanzierung von Altlastensanierungs-verfahren, Karlsruhe.
Schrenk, V. 2005. Ökobilanzen zur Bewertung von Altlastensanierungsmaßnahmen.
Mitteilungsheft Nr. 141, Institut für Wasserbau, Universität Stuttgart. ISBN: 3-933761-44-1.
USEPA. 2004. In Situ Thermal Treatment of Chlorinated Solvents: Fundamentals and Applications. EPA 542-R-04-010.  Washington, DC.

Sustainable Considerations for Sediment Remediation

John Ryan, AECOM Environment, 90 Finisterre Lane, Lopez Island, WA 98261, Tel: 360-468-4745, Email: john.ryan@aecom.com
Emese Hadnagy, AECOM Environment, 2 Technology Park Drive, Westford, MA 01886, USA, Tel: 978-589-3258, Fax: 978-589-3100, Email: emese.hadnagy@aecom.com
Erika Germiniani, AECOM Environment, Via Francesco Ferrucci 17/A, Milan, 20145, Italy, Tel: +39-02-318-0771, Email: egerminiani@ensr.aecom.com
Merv Coover, AECOM Environment, 710 Second Ave, Suite 1000, Seattle, WA 98104, Tel: 206-624-9349, Email: merv.coover@aecom.com
Anne Fitzpatrick, AECOM Environment, 710 Second Ave, Suite 1000, Seattle, WA 98104, Tel: 206-624-9349, Email: anne.fitzpatrick@aecom.com

In recent years, the concept of sustainability continued to gain more interest in the arena of contaminant remediation, and within that sediment remediation. Including sustainability considerations into the remedial alternatives evaluation process represents a more holistic approach that considers broader/more far-reaching impacts associated with a remedy compared to traditional evaluation methods. In this presentation, the most common contaminated sediment cleanup approaches – dredging/disposal, containment, and natural recovery – are used as examples to demonstrate this approach. Sustainability considerations related to a specific remedy include the following concepts: residual risk, biota/habitat impacts, community impacts, air emissions, worker risks, bioavailability, resource utilization, beneficial reuse of waste materials, the use of green technologies and adaptive management, all of which will be addressed in this presentation in relation to sediment remediation. Sustainability concepts can be expressed and quantified using various metrics, such as gas emissions (e.g., CO₂, CO, NOx, and SOx emissions), workplace accidents (e.g., expected number of accidents and deadly accidents during remediation activities), dust emissions (e.g., total PM10 and total PM2.5 emissions), energy consumption, and ecological footprints that are associated with the implementation of various sediment response actions. AECOM has developed a calculation tool that allows for the estimation of these metrics for sediment remediation technologies, specifically for capping using clean sand (both thin-layer and isolation capping) and dredging/disposal. A comparative evaluation of these technologies will be presented based on some of the above metrics.

Sustainable Environmental Remediation:  A Case Study of Contaminated Groundwater in Wichita, Kansas

Roger Olsen, Ph.D., Camp Dresser & McKee, 555 17th Street, Suite 1100, Denver, CO 80202, USA, Tel: 303-383-2300, Fax: 303-308-3003, Email: olsenrl@cdm.com
Shawn Maloney, P.G., City of Wichita - Department of Environmental Services, 1900 East 9th Street, Wichita, KS 67214, Tel: 316-268-8318, Email: smaloney@wichita.gov
Paul Anderson, P.E., Camp Dresser & McKee, 9200 Ward Parkway, Suite 500, Kansas City, MO 64114, USA, Tel: 816-444-8270, Fax: 816-444-8232, Email: andersonpd@cdm.com

Sustainable approaches to environmental contamination include solutions that go beyond compliance to achieve excellence in environmental stewardship, economic growth and social responsibility (the triple bottom line). This presentation provides information about the sustainability benefits of a recently constructed treatment system.

The City of Wichita, Kansas, faced a significant environmental challenge when chlorinated solvents impacted a large volume of groundwater extending from the downtown area south to the Arkansas River. The City implemented innovative approaches to address the issue. The beneficial outcomes of these approaches include construction of the groundwater treatment system which incorporates the Wichita Area Treatment, Education, and Remediation (WATER) Center, restoration of property values, redevelopment of portions of the Site, and restoration of groundwater quality.

Environmental Stewardship

The treatment system constructed as part of the WATER Center is designed to treat 1.7 million gallons of groundwater per day.  Since 2004, over 2.6 billion gallons of groundwater and 700 kg of chlorinated solvents have been treated. The area of contaminated groundwater above cleanup levels has been reduced by 44 percent.

Social Responsibility

Located in a public park adjacent to the Arkansas River, the WATER Center includes the groundwater treatment building; environmental education building; a plaza with fountains, landscaping, architectural features, and interpretive signage; and various site improvements such as a fish observatory and meandering creek.  The WATER Center’s educational resources teach site visitors about various environmental stewardship themes, and tours of the groundwater treatment building provide a “real-world” opportunity to see pollution prevention in action.

Economic Growth

The City’s innovative approaches established a model for addressing contamination and liability relief at sites nationwide. In addition to restoring property values and stabilizing the City’s tax base, Wichita has succeeded in encouraging commercial development. In the area of the site with greatest contamination, over $300 million of development has occurred.

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