Innovations in Ground Water and Soil Cleanup From Concept to Commercialization (1997) / Chapter Skim
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Pages 1-17
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report Alternatives for Ground Water Cleanup evaluated the performance of conventional pump-and-treat systems for ground water cleanup at 77 sites and found that regulatory standards had been achieved at only about 10 percent of the sites. The limitations of conventional ground water cleanup technologies are now widely recognized by environmental engineers, scientists, regulators, and others involved in waste site remediation.
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It focuses on technologies that treat contaminated ground water in place in the subsurface and technologies that treat contaminated soil directly at the site, either in place or in a treatment unit. The report suggests ways to strengthen market forces to create demand for innovations in these types of technologies; reviews the status of remediation technology development, identifying where technology needs are greatest; outlines criteria that should be used to assess remediation technology performance; describes strategies for testing remediation technologies to measure their performance against these criteria; and recommends methods for comparing the costs of alternative remediation technologies.
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From page 3... ...
A major failing of national policy in creating a healthy market for environmental remediation technologies is the lack of sufficient mechanisms linking the prompt cleanup of contaminated sites with the financial self interest of the organization responsible for the contamination. Several large corporations evaluated in this study spend an average of about 5 percent of their earnings on waste site remediation, yet corporate managers rarely look to innovative remediation technologies as a means of reducing costs.
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From page 4... ...
Other factors also contribute to the weakness of the remediation technologies market and the poor success record of new remediation technology ventures. These include unpredictable time lines for remediation technology selection, which prevents technology developers and investors from accurately projecting investment returns; lack of consistent regulatory standards among various regulatory programs (Superfund, RCRA, underground storage tank, and state)
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· Managers of federally owned contaminated sites should hire remediation contractors on a fixed-price basis and should establish independent peer review panels to check progress toward specified remediation milestones. Such steps are necessary to provide stronger incentives for federal remediation contractors to implement efficient, innovative solutions to contamination problems.
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From page 6... ...
A consistent regulatory process that responds rapidly to approval requests is essential so that remediation technology developers can predict with reasonable certainty the steps that will be required for regulatory approval of their technology and how long they may have to wait before receiving their first job contract. While the process for remedy selection should be the same at each site, site managers must have the flexibility to consider any remediation technology that they believe will meet regulations at the lowest possible cost, provided the public has sufficient opportunity to voice concerns during the remedy selection process and to challenge the selected remedy.
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While government agencies and others are investing considerable effort in remediation technology research, much more work in research, development, and field-scale application of remediation technologies is needed before ground water and soil contamination problems can be adequately solved. The greatest challenge in remediation is in the location and cleanup of contaminant mass in the subsurface that can serve as a long-term source of ground water pollution and lead to the formation of extensive plumes of contamination.
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A consistent framework for data entry and retrieval should be developed and used in all the data bases. · Government agencies, remediation consultants, and hazardous waste site owners should work to increase the sharing of information on remediation technology performance and costs.
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Recommendations: Establishing Success Criteria Increased attention to the concerns of all of the groups affected by hazardous waste sites is needed to streamline the process of remediation technology selec
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Specifying the point of maximum effect and its distance from the technology installation will improve technology comparisons. TESTING INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES Just as there are no standard criteria for evaluating the success of innovative ground water and soil cleanup technologies, there are also no standard protocols
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While the specific protocols used to test and evaluate a remediation technology will vary with the technology, common principles apply to all technologies, and standard types of performance data can be reported in a standard format for all types of technologies. Recommendations: Technology Testing Remediation technology developers, owners of contaminated sites, and environmental regulators all can take steps to increase the consistency in testing, re
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· In proving performance of an innovative remediation technology, technology developers should provide data from field tests to answer the following two questions: 1. Does the technology reduce risks posed by the soil or ground water contamination?
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From page 14... ...
· Applications for remediation technology verification under the new verification program should include a summary sheet in standard format. The summary sheet should include a description of the site at which the technology was tested, the evaluation methods used to prove technology performance, and the results of these tests.
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From page 15... ...
Such partnerships can leverage resources to speed innovative technologies through the pilot testing phase to commercial application. COMPARING COSTS OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGIES One of the greatest challenges in selecting systems for ground water and soil cleanup is the development of reliable cost data.
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The instruction manual should be advertised to remediation technology providers and users and should be available in an on-line version. · Costs of remediation technologies should be included in the coordinated national remediation technologies data bases recommended above and should always be reported as cost per unit volume of the contaminated ma
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From page 17... ...
If the United States is to protect the public health from risks associated with ground water and soil contamination, while avoiding needlessly exorbitant spending of taxpayer and corporate resources, then the federal government and others responsible for overseeing contaminated sites need to give high priority to the development of creative new solutions to site cleanup problems.
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