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Modelled zinc and sediment transport of the Spring River watershed: An evaluation of best management practices for remediation
Citation:
Al-Abed, S. Modelled zinc and sediment transport of the Spring River watershed: An evaluation of best management practices for remediation . Presented at Environmental Contaminant Identification, Assessment, and Remediation Workshops, Cluj, Romania, ROMANIA, June 14 - 21, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
These workshop presentations include valuable information stemmed from significant experience in environmental research and engineering solutions. The workshop will build on collaborative efforts with the Babes-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, ROMANIA and will contribute to the mission of CESER and the Agency to provide leadership in health and environmental risk assessment. This direct interaction and exchange ing ideas and research findings between EPA scientists and their colleagues in Eastern Europe (Romania) would benefit these Eastern European countries and address EPA's international roles in advancing the values of environmental justice and equity. Additionally it will help in building environmental infrastructure and strengthening environmental governance by deploying EPA expertise and innovation to foster improved environmental communication and knowledge transfer.
Description:
These workshops will be platform to present recent research at EPA as it relates to best practices in site characterization, sample analysis, and suitable treatment technologies for mining, persistent organic pollutants, and microplastics. The first presentation will be expanding approach to understanding metal transport and the potential effects of remediation techniques in these unique systems is watershed modeling. The approach is to use sampling and data analysis representing large watershed in terms of dissolved and particulate metal concentrations for the selection of remedial actions and their implementation across the watershed for better water quality. The second presentation is on the use of reactive nanomaterials in remediation of organic contaminants. Alternatives to traditional solution to halogenated organic contaminants such dredging and landfilling of contaminated sediments are often prohibitively expensive and impractical in many cases. Incinerating halogenated compounds produces toxic dioxins. Alternatively, reductive methods are more effective and safer because dioxins are not formed. A catalytic hydrodechlorination using bimetallic systems is a reduction technique where enhanced galvanic corrosion of a reactive metal at the bimetallic interface combined with the catalytic hydrogenation of a noble metal to drive the reduction of halogenated compounds. A recent approach will be presented on using reactive nanomaterials, such as Fe0 (nZVI) nanoparticles (NPs) or bimetallic (ZVI/Pd/carbon) nanosystems. This approach offers the potential for highly efficient targeted delivery of remedial agents to contain and degrade halogenated contamination in situ and remediating contaminated sites. The third presentation will be on emerging contamination of microplastics in the environment. Microplastics (MPs) have become a ubiquitous pollutant in urban watersheds. A major source of MPs in urban watersheds are from wastewater treatment plants, although they capture a large proportion of MPs, the volume of effluent is sufficient to pollute waterways. Run-off from roadways is another source for microplastics to enter the watershed. Roadway run-off consists of tire rubber, a pollutant of concern in Urban areas. Many studies have been conducted on the characterization and quantification of MPs in waterways, however researchers used several in sample collection, preparation, and analysis makes it difficult to compare between studies. This presentation will include sampling and analysis for the detection and characterization of microplastics in urban watershed.