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Engineering Technical Support Center Annual Report Fiscal Year 2013; Technical Support and Innovative Research for Contaminated Sites
Citation:
Bessler, S., J. McKernan, S. Stoll, AND R. Yeardley. Engineering Technical Support Center Annual Report Fiscal Year 2013; Technical Support and Innovative Research for Contaminated Sites. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-14/195, 2014.
Impact/Purpose:
The Engineering Technical Support Center (ETSC) was created in 1987 as one of a number of technical support centers in the Technical Support Project (TSP) to provide engineering expertise to U.S. EPA program offices and remediation teams working at contaminated sites across the United States. Currently based in Cincinnati, ETSC’s mission is to provide site-specific scientific and engineering technical support to remedial project managers (RPMs), on-scene coordinators and other remediation personnel at contaminated sites. ETSC’s mission allows the responsible local, regional or national authorities to work more quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively, while also increasing the technical experience of the remediation team. Since its inception, ETSC has supported countless projects across all EPA Regions in almost all 50 states and Territories.
Description:
This report summarizes a variety of significant projects that the ETSC, located in the Land Remediation and Pollution Control Division (LRPCD), National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL), has supported throughout fiscal year 2013. Projects have addressed an array of environmental scenarios, including but not limited to remote mining contamination, expansive landfill waste, sediment remediation by capping, and persistent threats from abandoned industrial sites. A major component of affecting meaningful remediation lies in constructing and testing new, innovative treatment technologies through pilot and field research. For example, ETSC teams have gone into the field to spearhead projects that are at the cutting edge of remediation research in the areas of bioremediation and groundwater treatment, active sediment capping, in-situ stabilization, and sustainable site cleanup. ETSC organizes and reports significant developments in environmental engineering in the form of Engineering Issue Papers and peer-reviewed journal publications. ETSC has also taken on a selection of newer initiatives that focus on integrating sustainability into communities and land use plans. While ETSC's principal mission of bolstering technical expertise for site-specific remediation at contaminated sites remains a central focus, ETSC teams are reaching out to support other efforts in prevention thereby reducing EPA’s burden from legacy sites in the future. NRMRL/LRPCD and the ETSC have evolved continually to meet the demands, as well as scientific and engineering needs of the EPA program offices and regional clients.