Summary Report. Separating Anthropogenic Metals Contamination from Background: A Critical Review of Geochemical Evaluations and Proposal of Alternative Methodology (2019, Final Report)
EPA's Ecological Risk Assessment Support Center (ERASC) announced the availability of the final document, Summary Report. Separating Anthropogenic Metals Contamination from Background: A Critical Review of Geochemical Evaluations and Proposal of Alternative Methodology.
Citation:
U.S. EPA. Summary Report. Separating Anthropogenic Metals Contamination from Background: A Critical Review of Geochemical Evaluations and Proposal of Alternative Methodology (2019, Final Report). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Ecological Risk Assessment Support Center, Cincinnati, OH, EPA/600/R-19/196, 2019.
Impact/Purpose:
This technical paper relates to the issue of background soil chemical demarcation at metals contaminated sites. Specifically, the paper addresses the validity of an empirical methodology that utilizes covariation between chemical concentrations and concentrations of major soil elemental constituents to identify samples that deviate from “natural” variation.
Description:
The Ecological Risk Assessment Support Center (ERASC) announced the release of the final document, Summary Report. Separating Anthropogenic Metals Contamination from Background: A Critical Review of Geochemical Evaluations and Proposal of Alternative Methodology. Meaningful estimates of background contaminant levels are a critical component of site assessments. This technical paper relates to the issue of background soil chemical demarcation at metals contaminated sites. Specifically, the paper addresses the validity of an empirical methodology (geochemical association plots) that utilizes covariation between chemical concentrations and concentrations of major soil elemental constituents (i.e., reference metals) to identify samples that deviate from “natural” variation. Consequently, a comprehensive investigation of this methodology was conducted and assumes assessments are conducted with chemical and reference metal data collected from reference sites (i.e., background data) and site related locations. This document summarizes the results of this investigation as described in two peer-reviewed articles.