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MEASURING AND INTERPRETING VOCS IN SOILS: STATE OF THE ART AND RESEARCH NEEDS
Citation:
Siegrist, R. AND J. Ee. MEASURING AND INTERPRETING VOCS IN SOILS: STATE OF THE ART AND RESEARCH NEEDS. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/540/R-94/506.
Description:
A "National Symposium on Measuring and Interpreting VOCS in Soils: State of the Art and Research Needs" was held in Las Vegas between January 121-14, 1993. pproximately 300 people attended from federal and state government, academia, and private industry. his conference covered all aspects of hazardous waste site investigations: from risk assessment to remediation. irtually all disciplines involved in those investigations were represented: isk assessors, soil scientists, hydrologists, statisticians, and bench top chemists. asic question addressed was whether the data being reported from the analysis of volatile organic compounds (VOCS) in soils were meeting the needs of the data user. he symposium facilitated communication across disciplines and interest areas. t was clear that the present approach in sampling and analyzing VOC-contaminant soils results in large amounts of bias and variability at virtually every step of the process. he people producing the data are often unaware of the amount of bias and variability that may be acceptable to the risk assessor; consequently, expensive, rigorous analytical methods are often used unnecessarily. onversely, the people using the data are not provided pertinent information on the bias and variability in the data, and it is difficult to determine how representative the measurements are of the risks and exposure pathways that they try to assess. ecommendations from the symposium are provided in the symposium summary.