2012 Annual Report to Characterize the Ottawa River Using Physical, Biological, and Chemical Lines of Evidence
Citation:
Mills, M., J. Schubauer-Berigan, Jim Lazorchak, K. Fritz, J. Meier, H. Thurston, S. Pala, E. Foote, AND P. Sokoloff. 2012 Annual Report to Characterize the Ottawa River Using Physical, Biological, and Chemical Lines of Evidence. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-18/219, 2018.
Impact/Purpose:
Increases in sustainable practices are needed to maintain water resources and waterways as important economic, commercial, recreational, and community resources. Sediments often serve as long-term sinks for legacy pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), inorganics, and other emerging and known contaminants of concern (COCs). Large areas of contaminated sediment accumulation are known to pose a threat to benthic, aquatic, and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as human health. Sediment contamination exists in every United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Region and state of the Nation, negatively impacting overlying surface waters and surrounding ecosystems, and ultimately the health and quality of life for surrounding communities.
Description:
International concern about contaminated sediments is increasing as sustainable practices are needed to maintain water resources and waterways as important economic, commercial, recreational, and community resources. Sediments often serve as long-term sinks for legacy pollutants, such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), inorganics, and other emerging and known contaminants of concern (COCs). Large areas of contaminated sediment accumulation are known to pose a threat to benthic, aquatic, and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as human health. Sediment contamination exists in every United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Region and state of the Nation, negatively impacting overlying surface waters and surrounding ecosystems, and ultimately the health and quality of life for surrounding communities. U.S. EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) conducts interdisciplinary contaminated sediment research projects within the Agency’s Sustainable and Healthy Communities (SHC) Research Program to evaluate the effectiveness of risk management strategies and develop innovative treatment technologies. These projects have investigated and documented methods and approaches to assess remediation projects in the short term (project driven goals) and over longer-term restoration and recovery periods (programmatic goals). Research described in this report focuses on the development of methods and approaches to conduct a remedy effectiveness assessment (REA) on environmental remediation projects. In this research effort, several monitoring and sampling approaches were utilized and evaluated during the remediation of contaminated sediments in the Ottawa River within the Maumee River Area of Concern (AOC). These approaches have been developed on contaminated sediment sites by ORD in cooperation with U.S. EPA’s Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO) and U.S. EPA’s Superfund (SF) Program. Environmental dredging was designated as the remedy of choice for the Ottawa River project (located in northwestern Ohio on the west side of Toledo). The Ottawa River is part of the Maumee River AOC, which drains into Lake Erie at Toledo. Environmental dredging was employed on the most contaminated areas or units within Reaches 2, 3, and 4 of the Lower Ottawa River stretching upstream (generally south and west) from River Mile (RM) 3.5 to RM 8.4. A total of 18 sampling stations was established between RM 3.2 and RM 8.8; in Reach 2 and 3, three of the six stations were located in remediated zones and three stations were located in un-remediated zones for comparison. In Reach 4, four stations were located in the remediated zone and two stations were located in the un-remediated zone. The total for the three reaches is 10 stations in the remediated zone and eight stations in the un-remediated zone.