Engineering Technical Support Center Annual Report Fiscal Year 2016
Citation:
McNeeley, A. AND J. McKernan. Engineering Technical Support Center Annual Report Fiscal Year 2016. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-17/294, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
The Engineering Technical Support Center (ETSC) was created in 1987 as one of several technical support centers in the Technical Support Project to provide engineering expertise to United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or Agency) program offices and remediation teams working at contaminated sites across the United States. The ETSC is operated within the Office of Research and Development’s Land Remediation and Pollution Control Division (LRPCD) of the National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL) in Cincinnati, Ohio. The ETSC’s mission is to provide site-specific scientific and engineering technical support to Remedial Project Managers, 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, the ETSC has supported countless projects across all EPA Regions in almost all 50 states and territories.
Description:
This report highlights significant projects that the ETSC supported in fiscal year 2016. These projects have addressed an array of environmental scenarios, including, but not limited to remote mining contamination, expansive landfill waste, cumulative impacts from multiple contamination sources, 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. The ETSC conducts such pilot and field research. For example, ETSC teams spearhead field projects that are at the cutting edge of remediation research in the areas of bioremediation and ground water treatment, active sediment capping, in-situ stabilization, and sustainable site cleanup. The ETSC organizes and reports on significant developments in environmental engineering in the form of Engineering Issue Papers and peer-reviewed journal publications. The 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 the Agency’s burden from legacy sites in the future. NRMRL/LRPCD and the ETSC have continually evolved to meet the demand, as well as scientific and engineering needs, of the EPA program offices and regional clients. In fiscal year 2016 (FY16), ETSC responded to approximately 251 technical support requests from over 150 sites in all 10 EPA Regions. This technical support directly affected 41 states, with CA, MT, NJ, NY and PR containing 35% of the sites. Eighty-three percent of the Superfund site technical support requests were National Priority List (NPL) sites.