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PERFORMANCE TESTING OF METHOD 1312-QA SUPPORT FOR RCRA TESTING
Citation:
Chiang, T., C. Valkenberg, D. Miller, AND G. Sovocool. PERFORMANCE TESTING OF METHOD 1312-QA SUPPORT FOR RCRA TESTING. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/4-89/022.
Description:
The question of how to access the risks associated with ground water contamination from soils containing toxic substances is a critical issue for the Agency. A major limitation of using Method 1310 and 1311 for this purpose is the fact that the sanitary landfill codisposal scenario does not apply to contaminated soils. If these methods are used to assess sites for cleanup purposes, the acetic acid leaching fluid could selectively solubilize toxicants (specifically lead) and incorrectly classify the solid as hazardous when, in fact, no mobilization (leaching) would be expected to occur in the environment. The EPA is considering the use of a newly created synthetic acid precipitation leach test for soils (Method 1312) to provide information about the mobility (leachability) of both organic and inorganic contaminants present in soils. This new test method is similar to the TCLP (Method 1311) except that the initial liquid solid separation step has been eliminated and the acetic acid buffer extraction fluid has been replaced by a dilute nitric acid/sulfuric acid mixture. This acid mixture simulates the nature of the precipitation occurring in the region where the soil sample originated. This report presents the satisfactory results obtained from precision evaluation of and ruggedness test for Method 1312. Several different soils were fortified with semi-volatile organics, metal salts and volatile organics, and then leached in replicate to determine method precision. A ruggedness evaluation was performed by making minor changes in specified method values to identify procedural variations requiring careful control.